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BTJILDINa    EEAS 


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RELIGION 


BY 

HORACE ' BUSHNELL 


LITERARY    VARIETIES 

m 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS 

743  AND  745  Broadway 

1881 


Copyright  by 

MABY    A.    BUSHNELL 

1881 


ADYEETISEMENT. 


The  articles  which,  compose  this  volume  are  such  as  were 
designated  by  Dr.  Bushnell  himself  in  a  list  headed 
"Reliquiae,"  as  the  material  for  a  book  to  be  published 
after  his  death.  The  list  was  longer  than  our  table  of 
contents  ;  but  it  was  his  desire  that  discrimination  should 
be  used,  and  only  those  articles  pubhshed  which  competent 
judges  should  decide  upon.  It  has  sometimes  been  difficult 
to  make  a  selection,  and  decision  has  especially  been  doubt- 
ful in  cases  where  the  subject  treated  was  at  the  time  of 
writing  in  a  stage  of  only  partial  development  in  the 
thought  of  the  world,  and  where  his  view,  then  an  advanced 
contribution  to  thought,  has  been  in  a  degree  superseded 
by  general  progress.  Such  was  an  interesting  article  on 
'^  Science  and  Religion." 

The  "  Letter  to  the  Pope "  is  included  not  without 
hesitation.  Yet  the  pecuHar  circumstances  which  attended 
its  publication  and  the  qualities  which  make  it  not  only 
interesting  but  extremely  characteristic  of  its  author,  alike 
entitle  it  to  a  place  in  history  and  literature.  The  two 
articles  on  "  Pulpit  Talent "  and  ''  Training  for  the  Pulpit " 
have  been  frequently  confounded,  but  they  are  both  in 
demand.  The  oration  on  "  Our  Obligations  to  the  Dead  " 
is  inserted,  notwithstanding  the  statement,  in  the  Preface 


VI  ADVERTISEMENT. 

to  the  first  volume  of  ''Literary  Varieties,"  that  it  must 
be  withheld  for  want  of  room.  Though  its  allusions  to 
characters  and  events  have  received  a  local  color  from  the 
occasion  of  its  delivery,  and  in  some  cases  from  personal 
attachments,  its  spirit  is  national  and  must  appeal  to  the 
most  sacred  memories  of  our  people. 

Valuable  fragments  on  subjects  more  especially  religious 
still  remain  unpublished.  It  is  possible  that  in  time  these 
too  may  see  the  light. 

Editor. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE. 

I.     Building  Eras  in  ReligioNj 9 

II.     The  New  Education, 35 

III.     Common  Schools, 71 

TV.     The  Christian  Trinity,  a  Practical  Truth,  106 

V.     Spiritual  Economy  of  Revivals  of  Religion,  150 

VL  '  Pulpit  Talent, 182 

VII.  -Training  for  the  Pulpit  Manward,      -     .  221 

VIII.  X)uR  Gospel  a  Gift  to  the  Imagination,  .  249 

IX.     Popular  Government  by  Divine  Right,      .  286 

X.  ^UR  Obligations  to  the  Dead,     .     .     .     .  319 

XI.     Letter  to  His  Holiness,  Pope  Gregory  XVI,  356 

XII.     Christian  Comprehensiveness,  .     ,     ,     .     .  386 


I. 

BUILDING  EEAS  IN  EELIGION.* 


The  greatest  buildings  of  the  world  are  not  palaces, 
or  forums,  or  amphitheatres,  but  temples.  It  may  be 
that  the  Coliseum,  able  to  hold  and  even  to  seat  a 
hundred  thousand  people,  was  a  more  capacious  build- 
ing than  was  ever  erected  for  the  uses  of  any  kind  of 
worship,  still  it  was  not  so  much  a  genuine  product  of 
architecture  as  a  prodigious  freak  of  royal  barbarity. 
And  we  are  therefore  none  the  less  permitted  to  say 
that  men  do  their  greatest  things  for  religion.  Neither 
is  anything  better  understood  than  that  every  relig- 
ion, which  has  power  to  get  historic  place  in  the  world, 
comes  to  the  flower,  sooner  or  later,  by  asserting  visi- 
bility and  permanence  in  stone.  It  builds,  and  by  that 
token  challenges  a  right  to  stay,  and  be  known  for 
the  ages  to  come ;  only  it  sometimes  happens  that  the 
structures  built,  like  empty  shells  found  strewed  upon 
the  shore,  remain,  after  both  the  builders  and  their 
religions  are  forgotten. 

Thus  we  have   the  vast  temple-works  of  Central 

*  Contributed  to  the  Hours  at  Home  in  1868,  Vol.  VII. 


10  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

America,  built  by  wq  know  not  whom,  or  for  what 
god.  The  temple  of  Karnac,  most  stupendous  of  all 
structures, — who  was  the  god,  and  what  the  religion, 
we  do  not  know.  The  Druids  of  England  built  the 
prodigious  fence  of  their  religion  called  Stonehenge, 
we  know  not  when,  and  can  only  discover  that  there 
was  force  enough  in  their  religion  to  build  gigantically. 
The  Incas  of  Peru  and  the  Aztecs  of  Mexico  kept 
themselves  in  remembrance  chiefly  by  their  temple  of 
the  Sun,  and  their  altar  pile  of  Cholula,  though  their 
religions  themselves  and  their  very  gods  are  forgot. 
The  Buddhist  cultus  set  up  its  grand  masonries  all  over 
the  East,  in  times  so  long  gone  by,  that  its  people 
have  now  lost  the  measures  of  their  ancestors,  and 
cannot  believe  in  them  ;  ascribing  the  stupendous  art 
and  magnificence  of  their  own  Boro-Budor  to  some 
unknown,  giant  race.  The  fanes  of  the  Greeks  and 
Romans,  and  of  the  later  people  of  Islam,  are  famil- 
iarly known.  So  it  is  that  every  religion,  above  the 
rank  of  mere  fetichism,  is  fated  to  become,  at  some 
time,  a  builder  ;  matching  its  ideas  and  ideal  inspira- 
tions by  its  masonries. 

So  it  is  to  be  with  the  ancient  Jehovah  religion. 
Nine  whole  centuries  must  pass  before  the  great 
building  day  arrives,  but  it  will  finally  come.  Down 
to  that  late  time,  there  has  never  anything  been  built 
for  the  Jehovah  worship,  but  a  tent  and  a  box.  So 
long  will  it  take  for  the  great,  everlasting  ideas  of  the 
religion  to  settle  the  roving  or  fugacious  habit  of  the 
people,  and  make  them  want  a  temple.  History  grinds 
slowly  even  when  it  grinds  for  God. 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  11 

First  of  all  Abraham  comes  out  of  the  far  East  as 
a  colonist,  leading  his  train  of  flocks  and  servants, 
and  they  go  a-gypsying,  as  all  shepherd  races  do,  from 
place  to  place,  making  no  settlement  during  his  life- 
time. Before  three  generations  are  passed,  his  pos- 
terity become  a  bond-slave  people  in  Egypt,  making 
brick  there  for  hundreds  of  years,  but  building  noth- 
ing. Then  they  take  a  turn  of  forty  years  in  a  cara- 
van state  under  Moses.  Next  follows  the  dark  middle 
age  of  anarchy  under  the  Judges,  lasting  five  hun- 
dred years  ;  out  of  which  they  emerge  with  scarcely 
a  religion  left,  saying  nothing  of  building  for  religion. 
Under  the  wise  magistracy  and  prophet  statesman- 
ship of  Samuel,  the  Jewish  Washington,  they  settle 
at  last  into  order.  David,  who  is  the  most  honored 
king  and  first  poet  of  his  country,  very  soon  obtains 
the  kingdom.  By  his  great  military  and  civil  admin- 
istration, he  enlarges  rapidly  the  empire  of  his  nation, 
consolidates  their  industry,  opens  a  new  and  great 
commerce,  and  makes  them  a  first-class  power.  Mean- 
time, by  his  religious  music,  and  his  religious  poetry, 
he  kindles  a  glorious  new  frame  of  inspiration  in  their 
feeling,  and  lifts  them  into  such  conscious  preemi- 
nence above  all  contemporary  peoples  as  properly 
belongs  to  their  religion.  Approaching,  in  this  man- 
ner, the  close  of  his  reign,  a  great  thought  dawns  in 
him  more  and  more  distinctly,  and  presses  him  at  last 
quite  urgently ;  viz.,  that  his  work  is  not  complete 
without  building,  or  at  least  preparing  to  build,  a  tem- 
ple for  his  God ;  for  he  does  not  propose  to  execute 


12  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

the  work  himself,  but  only  to  get  everything  ready 
for  his  son.  He  says  :  "I  will  make  preparation  for 
it ; "  and  right  royal  is  the  preparation  made.  He 
has,  in  fact,  so  great  an  inspiration  for  it,  that  the 
very  designs  and  patterns  he  prepares  appear  to  be 
given  him  by  the  Spirit,  as  chief  architect.  Vast 
quantities  of  stone  and  timber  are  gathered,  including 
precious  stones  and  marbles.  And  withal  there  is  laid 
up  in  the  treasury  gold  and  silver  enough,  obtained 
just  then  in  great  abundance  by  the  new  eastern  com- 
merce, to  pay  off  our  national  debt  about  sixteen  times 
over.  For  he  says :  "  the  house  that  is  to  be  builded 
for  the  Lord  must  be  exceeding  magnifical,  of  fame 
and  glory  tliroughout  all  countries."  It  must  be  a 
temple,  in  other  words,  such  as  may  be  worthy  of 
monotheism  ;  that  is,  of  the  God  of  all  gods,  the  Lord 
and  Creator  of  the  world. 

Solomon  takes  the  plans  and  supplies,  and  for 
seven  years  and  a  half  the  holy  hill-top  swarms  with 
its  many  thousand  workmen,  even  as  the  bees  at  their 
hive.  The  work  is  done,  and  the  great  building  era 
of  the  Jews'  religion  is  passed  ;  for  the  two  temples 
afterwards  built,  under  Zerubbabel  and  Herod,  were 
only  feeble  attempts  at  restoration  on  a  diminished 
scale.  We  have  no  drawings  of  the  first  temple  and  its 
architecture  that  can  be  relied  on,  but  as  the  propor- 
tions were  divinely  given,  it  must  have  had  merits 
transcendently  high.  Covered,  as  we  know  it  was, 
with  plates  of  gold  on  every  part,  and  glittering  like 
the  sun  from  afar,  it  was  certainly  a  structure  of  in- 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN     RELIGION.  13 

comparable  splendor.  It  must*  have  been  a  prodig- 
iously vast  structure  also,  when  taking  in  the  courts, 
which  were  integral  parts  of  it  considered  as  a  whole, 
and  a  single  one  of  which  covered  more  than  fourteen 
acres  of  ground. 

Descending  now  through  twenty  centuries,  we  come 
upon  a  second  era,  commonly  regarded  as  the  consum- 
mate building  time  of  Christianity.  I  speak  of  the 
Cathedral  age.  It  was  even  a  building  cycle,  lasting 
three  whole  centuries  ;  and  was  most  remarkable  for 
the  number,  and  beauty,  and  architectural  originality 
and  grandeur  of  the  structures  erected. 

It  was  long  before  the  new  religion  could  think 
much  of  building.  For  a  time  it  had  the  synagogues  of 
the  old  religion ;  small  modest  houses  erected  for  Scrip- 
ture-reading, exposition,  and  a  common  Sabbath  wor- 
ship. Driven  out  of  these,  it  betook  itseK  to  the 
quadrangles  of  courts,  and  to  caves,  and  catacombs 
underground.  Then,  by  and  by,  it  became  a  distinctly 
state  religion,  and  was  let  into  the  vacated  temples  of 
the  false  gods,  which  it  partially  remodeled,  remod- 
eling itself  also  to  meet  the  Pagan  ideas. 

There  was  no  building  as  yet,  save  in  a  few  isolated 
cases.  Panic,  desolation,  poverty, — the  barbarians 
of  the  North  pouring,  all  the  while,  down  across  the 
Christian  confines, — gave  religion  a  chance  for  noth- 
ing but  faith,  and  fortitude,  and  tears.  By  and  by, 
when  the  vials  of  this  wrath  were  spent,  the  barbar- 
ous irruptions,  now  in  the  ascendant,  were  found  to 


14  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

have  created  a  new  form  of  society,  based  in  the  feudal 
relations  and  the  semi-Christian  state  of  chivalry.  For 
the  feudal  chiefs  converted  must  somehow  get  a  more 
superlative  style  in  the  church  than  the  common  herd 
of  their  serfs.  Their  forward  soldiers  accordingly 
were  made  a  knightly  order  about  them  and  took  their 
vows  of  knighthood  in  ceremonies  before  the  altars  ; 
where  they  swore  fealty,  (1)  to  God,  (2)  to  the  baron 
or  prince  they  served,  and  (3)  by  a  volunteer  addition, 
to  some  fair  one  whose  name  they  relied  on  to  give 
the  heroic  inspiration.  To  redeem  these  rather  airy 
pledges  was  to  be  their  impulse  to  prowess  in  arms. 
And  this  knightly  character  gave  a  certain  fascinating 
cast  to  society.  True  courage,  honor,  courtesy,  all 
high  sentiment  were  in  it,  and  it  had  withal  as  great 
inspirations  from  religion  as  it  well  could  have,  in  a 
way  so  romantic,  or  so  nearly  fantastic.  It  created 
thus  a  new  romantic  literature  and,  partly  by  help  of 
that,  a  new  church  militant  age.  So  that,  when  the 
supreme  call  of  religion  was  heard,  demanding  in 
Christ's  name  the  rescue  of  the  holy  land  from  the 
infidels,  crusade  after  crusade  followed,  in  as  many 
great  waves  of  enthusiasm.  It  was  very  dear  enthu- 
siasm, and  yet  was  worth,  it  may  be,  all  it  cost.  The 
surviving  heroes  straggled  home,  bringing  new  ideas 
and  new  germs  of  life.  A  great  commerce  with  the 
East  followed,  and  a  vast  wealth  was  shortly  gathered 
in  the  coffers  of  the  abbe3^s  and  cathedral  chapters. 
And  now  the  old  heroics  of  sentiment,  the  romance, 
the  church  fervor,  took  fire  in  the  thought  of  building 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  15 

for  religion,  and  began  to  throw  itself  up  in  stone  as 
by  a  divine  call.  All  at  once  building  was  everywhere. 
Geometry  brought  back  from  the  Arab  schools  was 
put  to  work  in  a  recomposing  and  cruciforming,  as 
for  Christ,  of  the  Arabic  elements  of  architecture. 
Masonry  was  now  the  great  art,  and  masons  were 
trailing  from  province  to  province,  or  nation  to  nation, 
according  as  this  or  that  new  structure  might  require 
their  skill  and  labor.  For  mutual  security  and  certifi- 
cate, they  formed  themselves  into  guilds  and  societies 
perpetuated  even  to  this  day  in  fraternities  of  "  ac- 
cepted masons," — accepted  that  is  for  association's 
sake ;  though  not  understood  to  be  masons  at  all. 
Out  of  this  immense  constructive  bee-work,  all  over 
Christendom,  sprang  the  cathedrals,  and  the  people 
became  cathedral-builders  about  as  distinctly  as  bees 
are  wax-builders.  Thus  went  up  the  magnificent 
Minster  of  York,  the  grandly-studied  pile  of  Antwerp, 
the  gossamer  web  of  Strasburg,  the  sublime  incipiency 
of  Cologne,  the  mountain  peak  of  St.  Stephen's  of 
Vienna,  and  the  immortal  beauty  and  unmatched 
miracle  of  St.  Ouen  ;  not  to  name  well-nigh  a  hundred 
other  celebrated  structures,  all  over  Germany,  Bel- 
gium, France,  and  England.  David's  temple  may 
have  cost  more  in  the  weight  of  the  gold  than 
they  all, — it  probably  did, — but  gold  in  that  day  was 
scarcely  a  precious  metal  in  comparison.  The  archi- 
tectural merit  meantime  of  the  temple  must  have  been 
vastly  inferior ;  because,  apart  from  the  courts,  and 
the  external  breadth  and  magnificence  added  by  their 


16  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

circumjection,  it  was  a  comparatively  small  structure. 
It  had  really  no  interior  but  a  kind  of  sanctuary  cell, 
whereas  the  cathedrals  open  vast  heights  and  spaces 
within,  under  vaulted  skies  of  stone, — chambers  of 
worship  for  immense  gatherings  of  people,  and  halls 
of  ornament  more  august  than  were  ever  before  seen. 
No  forest  knew  how  to  grow  as  high,  or  pillar  its 
arches  as  gracefully.  It  was  as  if  the  stone  itself, 
bedded  in  cruciform  lines  of  foundation,  had  shot  up 
into  peaks,  and  pinnacles,  and  pointed  forms,  and 
sprung  its  flying  buttresses  across  in  air,  by  some  up- 
lifting sense,  or  quickened  aspiration. 

What  now  shall  we  say  ?  Do  we  stop  here  ?  After 
these  two  building  eras,  one  under  the  old  religion, 
the  other  under  the  new,  is  there  to  be  no  other  ?  The 
architects  will  answer.  No  ;  because  the  capacities  and 
combinations  of  lines  are  now  exhausted.  The  high- 
going  ritualists  will  say.  No ;  because  the  cathedrals 
represent  the  ideal  age  of  the  Church  and  religion 
beyond  which  nothing  more  advanced  is  possible. 
The  plain  people  will  say,  No,  for  humility's  sake ; 
imagining  that  all  high  building  slurs  the  spirituali- 
ties ;  not  observing  that  our  truest  littleness  consists 
in  doing  our  greatest  things  for  God.  The  last-days' 
people  will  say,  No ;  because  the  end  is  at  hand,  and 
there  is  no  time  left  for  any  building  era  to  come. 
Another  class  will  say.  No,  more  argumentatively ; 
alleging  that  a  worship  for  the  eyes,  as  in  the  lifting 
of  the  host  before  vast  multitudes  of  people,  must  give 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  17 

way  henceforth  to  a  preaching  and  hearing  exercise, 
and  accordingly  that  only  small  edifices  will  hereafter 
be  wanted  ;  such  as  may  be  called  audience  rooms  and 
used  as  stands  for  preaching. 

Encountering,  at  the  outset,  so  many  kinds  of  nega- 
tives, we  must  consent,  perhaps,  to  part  company  with 
a  good  many  of  our  readers,  in  conceiving  the  possi- 
bility, or  probable  fact,  of  any  building  era  more  mag- 
nificent hereafter  to  appear.  A  great  many  people, 
a  whole  major  class  indeed  of  the  world,  are  ready 
always  to  judge  that  nothing  ever  can  be,  which  is 
not.  What  can  be  more  visionary,  in  .fact,  than  to 
imagine  that  what  has  not  been  ever  will  be ;  that 
what  is  admired  will  pass  by ;  that  what  is  done  will 
be  outdone !  Sometimes  they  are  greatly  delighted 
by  the  confidence  of  progress  and  of  some  great  day 
to  come,  but  that  progress  can  do  anything  more  than 
to  just  continue  and  extend  the  present  is  quite  incredi- 
ble ;  they  have  never  carried  their  mind  so  far  as  to 
imagine  anything  farther.  They  are  going  to  convert 
the  world,  and  liberate  the  world,  and  make  all  things 
luminous,  and  completely  redintegrate  society,  but 
how  can  they  imagine  that  greater  men  are  to  be 
seen,  and  more  of  them,  and  greater  assemblies  gath- 
ered, and  new  modes  of  worship  and  fellowship  gener- 
ated, such  as  will  demand  structures  of  another  type 
and  vaster  dimensions !  And  how,  above  all,  can  any 
but  some  inveterate  dreamer  imagine,  that  architect- 
ure will  hereafter  pass  into  new  forms,  and  take  body 
in   proportions  more  august!     Had  these  people  of 


18  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

progress  without  expectation  lived  in  the  days  when 
the  Coliseum  was  founded,  they  would  have  laughed  at 
the  idea  than  anything  could  ever  be  done  in  the  Greek 
lines  of  architecture,  which  had  not  already  been  done. 
And  yet  here  is  an  edifice  drawn  out  in  ellipse,  com- 
bining in  three  stories  the  three  Greek  orders,  with 
walls  a  hundred  feet  high  and  no  roof,  and  vast 
enough  to  contain  more  people  than  all  the  Greek 
temples  of  the  world  together.  True,  the  architecture 
is  not  very  wonderful  in  its  beauty ;  no  matter  for 
that,  it  was  actually  built,  and  was  quite  as  finely  con- 
ceived as  the  barbarous  and  abominable  uses  could 
any  way  fitly  inspire.  Twenty  years  before,  there  was 
never  to  be  any  such  great  superstructure,  and  the 
man  who  should  suggest  the  possibility  would  be 
mocked  by  the  whole  world's  laughter!  And  yet 
now,  here  it  is,  just  because  an  emperor  has  risen 
barbarous  enough  in  his  taste  and  surrounded  by  a 
people  barbarous  enough  in  their  servility,  to  delight 
in  the  scenes  which  this  hell  of  inhumanity  is  to 
exhibit !  Why  then  should  it  be  thought  impossible 
that  the  regenerative,  out-spreading,  all -transforming 
power  of  our  gospel,  should  sometime  be  able,  in  the 
glorious  instinct  of  its  fellowship,  to  do  as  great  a 
thing  also  as  it  may  want,  whenever  it  is  wanted  ?  If 
we  do  not  believe  that  other  Coliseums  are  yet  to  be 
built  on  a  much  grander  scale,  why  should  they  not, 
save  that  we  so  confidently  hope  the  world  will  not  be 
wicked  enough  and  coarse  enough  to  want  them  ? 
After  all  it  is  the  particular  fault  of  our  great  expect- 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  19 

ancies,  that  we  do  not  expect  anything.  Without 
knowing  it,  we  tacitly  assume  that  nothing  is  to  appear 
beyond  our  scale,  and  that  our  machine  is  really  to 
run  but  a  short  time  longer,  finishing  off  at  last  in 
the  ordinary  !  On  the  contrary,  just  everything  indi- 
cates, it  seems  to  me,  that  these  present  times  are 
God's  beginnings,  and  we  almost  see  with  our  eyes 
that  the  world  is  but  an  egg  unhatched  as  yet ;  prep- 
aration, possibility,  nothing  more.  It  will  take  a  long 
time  yet  to  finish  the  plan, — ages  upon  ages,  "  world 
without  end,"  as  the  doxology  sings, — ^for  it  is  not  go- 
ing to  be  a  losing  plan,  as  it  would  be  if  it  were  to  be 
ended  now.  It  will  yet  go  on,  we  may  believe,  propa- 
gating salvation,  character,  saintship,  brotherhood,  in- 
telligence, and  glory,  not  for  some  hundreds,  but  more 
probably  for  some  hundred  thousands  of  years,  till  the 
populations  of  the  redeemed  souls  preponderate  so 
vastly  as  to  throw  all  computations  of  loss  out  of 
mind.  Great  things  in  this  view  are  yet  to  be  done 
here,  and  we  must  not  too  soon  conclude  that  nothing 
is  to  appear,  transcending  what  is  or  has  been. 

There  has  never  before  been  a  time,  we  may  see 
at  a  glance,  when  such  vast  assemblies  could  be  gath- 
ered at  single  points  as  now,  if  there  were  any  occa- 
sion for  it.  Our  railroad  circulations  could  hurl  in, 
almost  any  day,  on  the  great  centres,  a  hundred  or 
five  hundred  thousand  people.  Structures  too  can  be 
raised,  if  they  are  wanted,  large  enough  to  shelter 
and  contain  them  all,  and  if  we  ask  what  they  can  do 
by  coming  together  in  such  multitudes,  and  how  they 


20  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

can  be  wielded  in  a  manner  to  answer  any  practical 
purpose,  it  may,  or  may  not  be  easy  to  specify  the  par- 
ticular object  and  way  beforehand.  But  it  is  a  remark- 
able fact  that  a  particular  invention,  just  now  com- 
pleted, organizes  a  brain,  or  sensorium,  for  the  whole 
living  world,  and  can  much  more  easily  do  it  for 
whole  acres  of  living  assembly.  We  can  even  set 
all  choirs  and  organs,  in  every  part  of  our  State,  or 
nation,  upon  a  perfect  chime  of  time-beat,  in  any 
given  anthem,  at  any  given  hour  of  night  or  day  ; 
and  who  can  say  what  uses  may  yet  be  served  in  as- 
semblies by  these  courier  threads  of  wire  in  the  long 
grand  future  before  us  ?  If  Holiness  to  the  Lord  is 
to  be  written  on  the  bells  of  the  horses,  why  not  on 
these  wires,  which  are  so  much  closer  to  intelligence  ? 
We  know  very  little,  as  yet,  what  is  to  come  of  these 
and  such  like  'instrumentations.  God  no  doubt  has 
some  very  grand  chapters  of  advance  to  be  revealed 
in  their  religious  uses,  such  as  our  slow-going  imagin- 
ations are  not  likely  at  once  to  overtake. 

This  one  thing,  meantime,  is  clear  as  it  need  be, 
that  we  are  going  to  have  resources  for  building,  if 
building  is  wanted,  that  have  never  yet  been  devoted 
to  any  such  purpose.  We  have  more  wealth,  now  in  our 
roadways,  measured  in  creative  industry,  than  Solo- 
mon put  into  his  temple,  and  it  is  not  money  spent  as 
with  him,  but  money  invested  for  a  larger  production. 
The  powers  we  have  now  at  work  are  creating  untold 
wealth,  such  as  was  never  before  seen,  and  is  not  now 
conceived.     Becoming  less  airy  and  pretentious  too,  as 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  21 

it  becomes  more  common,  wealth  will  be  entered  more 
easily  into  the  finest  perceptions  and  loftiest  ideals  of 
religion.  It  will  have  its  inspirations,  and  will  join 
itself  to  the  brotherhood  of  the  saints  in  all  the  grand 
purposes  and  fervors  of  their  advancing  cause. 
Wealth  has  a  new  grand  chapter  thus  to  write ;  and 
having  all  utmost  ability,  it  will  as  certainly  become 
a  great  builder,  as  there  is  found  to  be  any  Christian 
occasion  for  it.  And  it  will  be  strange,  if  resources 
so  immensely  great  do  not  sometime  appear  in  struc- 
tures that,  for  magnitude  and  majesty,  are  unequaled. 
And  we  need  not  be  afraid  lest  the  art  of  building 
should  be  found  to  have  come  to  its  limit.  There  is 
a  beautifully  artless  art  in  sanctified  souls,  raising 
them,  age  upon  age,  into  higher  capacities  of  form, 
because  their  perception  is  holier  and  closer  to  eternal 
truth.  Supposing  then,  that  no  new  forms  and  orders 
are  ever  to  be  added,  any  least  inventive  bigot  of 
routine  can  see,  that  putting  down  a  Greek  cross  for 
the  centre,  and  drawing  out  the  four  limbs  into  four 
Latin  crosses,  a  most  perfect  five-fold  whole  can  be 
constructed  of  any  conceivable  extent.  There  is  also 
a  kind  of  architectural  effect  proposed  by  Ezekiel,  in 
his  mystic  temple,  that  has  never  yet  been  exhausted ; 
it  has  not,  in  fact,  been  tried,  save  in  a  very  limited 
way  in  a  few  of  the  most  picturesque  Middle  Age 
structures.  It  proposes  a  cutting  into  the  walls  oi 
the  structure,  built  immensely  thick,  of  open  corridors 
and  open  stairways,  to  be  used  in  processions  that  shall 
be  seen  moving  onward  and  back,  and  up  and  down, 


22  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    BELIGION. 


all  over  the  structure,  without  and  within,  and  mak- 
ing it  alive  with  marching  hosts  of  praise.  As 
describing  it,  the  prophet  says  :  "  And  the  side-cham- 
bers (galleries,  corridors)  were  three,  one  over  an- 
other, and  thirty  in  order ;  and  they  entered  into  the 
wall.  *  *  *  ^nd  there  was  an  enlarging  and  a 
winding  about  still  upward  to  the  side-chambers ;  for 
the  winding  about  of  the  house  went  still  upward 
round  about  the  house."  *  In  this  way,  as  it  will  be 
seen,  the  vast  stone  pile  was  to  be  made  alive  as  if  it 
were  some  ant-hill  of  worship,  and  have  the  living 
multitudes  of  the  people  for  its  ornamentation.  And 
who  shall  say  that  new  ideas  and  forms  shall  not  here- 
after be  invented  ?  Is  it  possible, — can  we  be  so  weak 
as  to  think  it, — that  these  immeasurable  ages  to  come 
are  never  to  go  beyond  the  present  alphabet  of  archi- 
tecture and  its  elements  ?  What  have  we  done  by 
our  geologic  explorations,  but  set  open  the  temple  of 
the  creation,  showing  how  the  several  tiers  and  stories 
rise  upon  each  other,  and  how  it  is  garnished  by  the 
wondrous  living  creatures  that  have  bedded  their  fig- 
ures in  the  stone ;  all  which,  in  some  age  of  holy  and 
believing  science  yet  to  come,  may  suggest,  we  know 
not  what  new  combinations  of  constructive,  art  ?  And 
when  the  great  new-creation  day,  or  day  of  the  Spirit, 
which  we  all  look  for,  arrives,  will  it  not  be  the  day 
of  the  Dove,  in  symbols  and  constructions  that  pre 
sent  the  spiritualities  hovering  now  above  and  through 

*Ezek.  xli,  6,  7 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  23 

all  cruciform  order  and  structure,  as  the  Pentecost 
hovers  in  the  sky  of  Calvary  ?  We  stammer,  of 
course,  in  all  such  half-discerning  suggestions.  Our 
guesses  are  weak.  But  new-born  fact,  when  it  comes, 
will  show  us  something  not  weak. 

So  far,  we  are  looking  at  the  ways  and  means  and 
possibilities  of  another  building  age  or  ages.  Let  us 
look  here  for  a  moment,  into  what  wants  may  be  ris- 
ing to  require  it.  After  all,  this  cathedral  age  that 
we  so  commonly  copy  and  praise,  and  sometimes  idol- 
ize, is  a  great  way  off  from  being  completely  and  gen- 
uinely Christian.  Knighthood  and  grim  war  flavor 
all  the  grace  there  is  in  it.  The  worship  too,  is  to  be 
altar-worship ;  not  as  commemorating  the  offering 
once  for  all,  but  before  and  around  the  grand  altar 
set  in  the  focal  point  of  the  edifice,  where  priests  are 
to  be  wavin»  their  incense,  and  offering  always  Christ's 
new-created  body  for  the  people  to  worship.  They 
come  as  to  an  offertory  therefore,  and  not  as  to  the 
hospitality  of  a  "  table."  Meantime,  the  structure  it- 
self is  called  a  cathedral,  because  the  bishop  is  con- 
ceived to  be  sitting  in  cathedra  there,  as  presiding 
in  the  functions  of  his  spiritual  lordship.  The  prepar- 
tions  of  the  place,  grand  as  they  are  in  their  forms, 
have  a  look  that  is  partly  alien ;  representing  the 
swollen  pomp  of  authority,  and  back  of  all,  a  power 
that  deals  with  religion  specially,  as  being  patron  to 
it,  and  having  it  in  charge. 

Now  it  is  not  difficult  to  see,  that  something  differ- 
ent from  this,  and  more  advanced,  and  built  upon  a 


24  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

larger  scale,  is  yet  to  be  demanded.  We  are  to  look, 
in  particular,  for  something  more  nearly  in  the  type 
of  the  Pentecost,  and  the  new  brotherly  communion 
there  displayed.  Had  there  been  thrown  up  there,  on 
the  instant,  a  structure  vast  enough  to  accommodate 
the  uses  of  the  many  thousand  converts,  it  would  not 
have  been  a  cathedral,  or  bishop' s-seat  edifice,  but  it 
would  have  been  something  more  fitly  called  a  Koino- 
nial,  or  House  of  Communion.  Or  it  might  have  been 
called  the  House  of  the  Dove,  or,  tipped  with  Spirit- 
fire  on  all  the  summits  without,  the  House  of  Flame. 
No  matter  what  the  name,  if  only  we  distinguish  the 
thing ;  a  temple  for  the  communion  of  saints,  and 
their  worship  in  the  Spirit,  vast  enough  to  take  in  all 
the  immense  crowds  of  pilgrims  there  gathered;  "Par- 
thians,  and  Modes,  and  Elamites,  and  the  dwellers  in 
Mesopotamia,  and  Judea,  and  Cappadocia,  in  Pontus 
and  Asia,  Phrygia  and  Pamphylia,  in  Egypt  and  the 
parts  of  Libya  about  Cyrene,  strangers  of  Rome,  Jews 
and  proselytes,  Cretes  and  Arabians," — all  brothers 
now  in  the  brotherhood  of  Christ  begun, — breaking 
bread  together,  and  joining  in  the  solid  unity  of  their 
worship  with  all  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart.  In 
the  first  two  crops  of  converts  harvested  here  at  the 
beginning,  we  have  a  count  of  five  thousand  souls, 
who,  instead  of  going  from  house  to  house  in  the 
breaking  of  bread,  would  have  rushed  in,  by  the  in- 
stinct of  their  love,  to  fill  any  common  temple  large 
enough  to  receive  them. 

And  in  just  the  same  way  admitting,  as  we  proba- 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  25 

bly  should,  that  our  people  are  to  be  trained  or  disci- 
pled  in  small  bodies  and  hearing  assemblies,  there  will 
almost  certainly  be,  as  there  always  have  been,  occa- 
sions where  vaster  assemblies  will  desire  to  be  gath- 
ered and  have  their  brotherhood,tobeheldinalarger 
bond  of  communion.  Within  a  few  j^ears  past  there 
has  been  a  Sunday-school  gathering  in  England,  which 
probably  no  one  of  their  cathedrals  would  have  con- 
tained. 

If  our  Baptist  friends  are  right  in  assuming  that 
the  whole  church  of  God  is  coming  to  their  practice 
at  last,  they  ought  to  expect  that  in  some  of  the  great 
cities  Baptisteries  may  be  wanted  vast  enough  to  be 
canopied  only  by  the  sky,  like  the  Coliseum.  We  are 
having  great  crowds  gathered  in  the  name  of  our 
Christian  Association,  and  shall  probably  have  still 
greater  in  the  years  to  come,  such  as  can  be  assembled 
only  in  some  vast  koinonial  structure,  nowhere  now  to 
be  found.  Within  a  very  few  days  past  there  has 
been  held  in  the  Crystal  Palace,  a  grand  commemora- 
tion of  Handel,  where  a  choir  of  three  thousand  gath- 
ered an  audience  of  twenty  thousand.  It  would  not 
be  more  strange  than  some  other  things  which  have 
happened,  that  within  a  ten  years'  time,  the  Evangeli- 
cal Alliance,  raised  to  the  higher  pitch  and  more 
catholic  scope  of  its  calling,  should  be  gathering 
assemblies  of  saints,  as  it  were  by  nations ;  such  as 
will  require  more  space  than  any  Hall  of  Exposition, 
or  Crystal  Palace,  would  be  able  to  afford  them. 

Besides  we  are  not  to  forget  that  great  movements. 


26  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

now  beginning  all  over  tlie  world,  foretoken  vast 
assemblages  of  believers  flowing  together  in  a  sublime 
concourse  of  brotherhood.  The  eternal  Spirit  is  hov- 
ering over  the  nations  and  setting  them  in  upon  closer 

)  and  closer  bonds  of  amity^  such  as  must  be  finally 
sealed  by  the  Christian  inspirations.  "  Lift  up  thine 
eyes  round  about  and  see  ;  all  these  gather  themselves 
together,  and  come  to  thee ; "  Catholic,  and  Greek, 
and  Protestant,  all  as  one.  The  abundance  of  the  sea, 
all  the  forces  of  the  Gentiles,  from  China  round,  will 
as  certainly  come  into  the  circuit  of  one  love,  as  into 
that  of  commerce  and  diplomacy,  and  it  will  result 
that,  in  these  vast  new  confluences,  there  will  be  great 
assemblages  gathered, wanting  structures  where  they 
may  be.  Besides,  in  that  great  day  which  we  think 
the  Spirit  is  preparing,  we  can  see,  at  a  glance,  that 
changes  will  be  coming  to  pass  that  will  demand  great 
feasts  and  anthems  of  hoinonial  worship,  such  as  our 
world-brotherhood  has  never  yet  imagined. 

We  have  been  split  up,  for  example,  by  many  thous- 
and debates,  trying  to  settle  bases  of  unity  by  the  set- 
tlement of  opinions.  But  these  notional  points  or 
entities  breed,  as  we  find,  only  sects  and  sub-divisions 
without  end,  and  all  our  longings  after  the  complete 
fellowship  are  disappointed.     But  when  tliese  nits  of 

•  opinion  are  all  hatched,  these  dissidences  all  worn  out, 
and  the  "  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one  baptism,  one  God 
and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all, 
and  in  all,"  begin  to  be  felt  as  the  uppermost  fact 
and  grandest  faith,  l3efore  which  all  opinions  are  to  be 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  27 

scliooled  into  their  places,  by  that  time  we  sink  as  it 
were  in  final  gravitation  downward  on  the  state  of 
unity.  '  We  shall  flow  together,  most  likely,  with  an 
ardor  of  brotherhood  now  inconceivable.  The  road- 
ways will  be  rivers  of  men,  crowding  downwards  on 
the  centres  of  appointed  fellowship,  and  the  assemblies 
gathered  will  not  be  satisfied  with  anthems  that  are 
not  as  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

And  so  again  it  will  be,  when  the  immense  impos- 
ture of  the  Popehood  goes  down.  "When  that  priest- 
hood and  all  priesthood  goes  down,  letting  God's 
armies  of  believers  forth  into  the  enlarged  liberties  of 
his  kingdom,  it  will  be  the  new  grand  birth-day  morn- 
ing of  Christian  brotherhood.  Protestant  is  no  more, 
Catholic  is  no  more,  but  Christ  is  all,  and  there  will 
be  no  cathedrals  large  enough  to  be  more  than  side 
chapels  of  the  Grand  Houses  of  Unity  now  required. 
St.  Peter's  will  now  dwindle  to  a  toy,  and  the  great 
hoinonials,  if  so  we  please  to  call  them, — cathedrals 
they  will  not  be, — will  so  far  have  their  place.  There 
will  here  be  no  pulpits,  it  may  be,  or  preaching-stands  ; 
no  altar,  for  the  sacrifice  is  ended,  gone  by  for  ever ; 
no  priest  or  priestly  vestments,  for  Christ  the  only 
and  last  priest  is  gone  up  on  high ;  there  will  be  no 
dividing  screen  behind  which,  in  their  choir,  the 
canons  are  heard  chanting  out  of  sight  in  male  voice 
only :  but  the  whole  wide  space  within,  crowded  from 
wall  to  wall  with  its  many  thousand  worshipers,  will 
be  itself  the  choir,  canons  all  themselves,  male  and 
female,  lifting  their  own  grand  hymn,  or  Hallelujah 


28  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

together ;  so  that,  as  the  gospel  itself  is  not  a  salva- 
tion for  half  the  world  but  for  all,  the  glorious  sopranos 
will  now  have  their  j^art,  floating  clear  above  and 
fluting  heavenly  sanctities  on  the  top  of  so  great 
masses  of  sound. 

There  is  also  yet  another  change  to  be  anticipated, 
when  the  promised  day  of  the  Spirit  arrives,  that  will 
naturally  bring  together  immense  conventicles  of  a 
kind  more  severely  grand,  because  of  the  stupendous 
intellectual  consolidation  supposed.  I  refer  to  the 
final  reconciliation  of  science  and  religion.  There  is 
no  real  discord  between  them.  The  natural  and  the 
supernatural,  science  and  faith,  have  a  unity  of  rela- 
tion as  complete  as  any  right  and  left  hand.  And 
yet  it  has  not  hitherto  been  easily  discovered ;  for  we 
have  just  now  a  large  dissent  on  hand  that  disallows 
all  miracle,  takes  away  the  possibility  of  prayer,  and 
weakens  and  chills,  in  a  thousand  ways,  the  faith  of 
religion  itself.  It  is  partly  the  fault  of  a  narrow- 
minded  way  in  the  disciples  and  professed  champions 
of  religion,  and  partly  the  fault  of  an  over  hasty  and 
falsely  tempered  intellectual  conceit,  in  the  forward 
teachers  and  expounders  of  nature.  The  schism  is  an 
old  one,  really  as  old  as  the  world  ;  viz.,  a  conflict  be- 
tween thinking  and  believing ;  only  the  strife  is  now 
being  drawn  closer  as  the  system  of  science  and  the 
habit  of  thinking  in  the  terms  of  causes  are  more 
stringently  set.  Many  are  greatly  concerned  lest  all 
faith  and  all  supernatural  truth  should  be  subsiding 
now  into  final  contempt.     Christianity  they  fear  has 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION,  29 

come  to  its  limit  and  is  ready  to  die.  Far  from  that 
as  possible.  On  the  contrary  this  fearful  closing  in 
of  the  conflict  is  but  a  convergence  towards  the  set- 
tlement of  it.  The  point  of  comprehension  is  now 
being  reached,  where  it  shall  be  seen  that  nature  and 
the  supernatural  are  joint  factors,  ah  eterno^  in  God's 
kingdom,  complementary  one  to  the  other  and  not 
contrary.  And  when  the  conclusion  is  fully  estab- 
lished, entered  into  the  mind  both  of  science  and 
religion,  they  will  be  forever  atoned  and  reconciled  to 
each  other  in  a  solid  and  compact  unity.  They  will 
now  be  forward  to  recognize  each  other  in  the  great 
fraternity  of  God,  and  will  want  occasions  where  they 
may  say,  "-  all  hail,"  to  each  other,  and  set  forth  their 
common  revelations.  No  fact  ever  took  place  in  the 
world  at  all  comparable  to  this  reconciliation  of  science 
and  religion,  save  the  reconciliation  of  the  great  world- 
schism  made  by  sin  itself;  and  indeed  this  other 
reconciliation  is  never  completed  and  set  in  the  dignity 
of  reason,  without  the  other.  Faith  henceforth  will 
not  be  timorous  any  more,  for  it  is  now  become  the 
congener  of  all  reason.  It  will  even  be  scientific 
to  believe,  and  there  will  be  a  vaster,  broader 
enthusiasm  kindled  for  the  great  brotherhood  of 
religion,  than  has  ever  yet  been  conceived.  It  will  be 
the  Creator-worship  and  Redeemer-worship  joined, 
and  the  assemblies  will  want  spaces  and  symbols  in 
which  the  brotlierhood  of  all  fact  and  truth  may  be 
fitly  acknowledged. 

What  occasions  there  may  be  for  great  assemljlies, 


30  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

and  what  vaster  structures  may  be  wanted  for  their 
use,  appear  to  be  now  sufficiently  shown.  If  any 
should  ask  at  this  point,  by  what  precise  uses,  or  modes 
of  use,  these  structures  will  be  occupied,  we  shall  be 
much  at  fault  of  course.  I  have  already  suggested  a 
possible  use  of  the  telegraphic  instrumentation,  throw- 
ing out  sentiments  in  printed  forms  which  the  vastest 
conceivable  assemblies  may  respond  to  in  thunders  of 
assent ;  petitions  of  prayer  set  forth  to  which  the 
common  Amen  will  make  answer  as  by  the  sound  of 
many  waters;  anthems,  and  chants,  and  hymns,  and  pub- 
lic te  deums,  that  will  command  the  common  voice  of  as 
many  organs  and  choirs  as  will  be  wanted  for  whole 
acres  of  assembly.  Holy  processions  too  may  be  timed 
by  hymns  and  marches  in  the  galleries  of  walls  that 
are  alive  with  worship.  We  know  nothing  of  all  this. 
It  is  not  for  us  to  appoint  these  matters.  We  only 
see  that  there  will  be  great  movements  of  brother- 
hood, and  great  feeling  wanting  expression,  and  the 
men  of  the  times  will  know  how  to  find  it  without 
help  from  us.  Enough  to  know  that  there  are  great 
days  yet  to  come  !  Would  that  we  could  see  them ! 
— and  perhaps  we  shall. 

Since  now  it  will  seem  to  some  of  you,  as  already 
anticipated,  that  I  have  been  venturesome  or  vision- 
ary in  these  suggestions,  let  it  be  remembered  that 
what  is  written  in  the  Scripture  is  far  more  visionary 
in  its  way,  and  promises  more.  In  the  last  chapters 
of  Ezekiel  and  of  John,  we  have  I  know  not  what 
revelations  of  a  great  building  era  to  come.     Both 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  31 

describe  and  give,  as  by  definite  measurements,  the 
proportions  of  a  vast  new  city.  The  name  of  the 
city,  according  to  one,  is,  The  Lord  is  There.  The 
other  calls  it.  The  New  Jerusalem.  According  to  one, 
there  is  to  be  a  temple  in  the  city ;  according  to  the 
other,  no  temple  at  all,  but  a  throne  of  universal  wor- 
ship; which  comes  back  very  nearly  to  the  same 
thino;.  If  it  should  be  imao'ined  that  these  archi- 
tectural  pictures  relate  to  the  perfect  state  of  the 
blessed  hereafter,  that  may  be  true ;  but  it  will  be 
true  only  as  a  glorious  kind  of  city  life  in  God  has 
been  first  produced  here,  flowing  into  that  by  transi- 
tion. In  one  of  the  cities,  a  healing  stream  is  seen 
flowing  out  from  under  the  threshold  of  the  temple, 
which  symbolizes,  of  course,  the  universal  healing  of 
the  gospel.  In  the  other,  the  very  city  itself  is  to  be 
seen  descending  out  of  heaven  from  God,  and  all  the 
glory  and  honor  of  the  nations  are  represented  as  be- 
ing gathered  into  it.  All  which  indicates,  it  will  be 
seen,  a  great  moral  regeneration  here  below.  And  if 
I  have  been  right,  exactly  this  moral  and  spiritual 
regeneration  is  going  to  require  a  great  building  age 
for  its  uses,  which,  again,  appears  to  be  shown  us  in 
these  prophetic  pictures.  However  much  they  are 
spiritualized,  it  will  be  very  difficult  to  give  them  any 
construction  that  does  not  imply  the  actual  building 
of  something  transcendently  vast  and  impressive.  It 
may  not  be  true  that  any  city  will  be  built  that  is  lit- 
erally three  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  square 
and  three  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  high,  as  in 


32  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

John's  description.  But  these  definite  measures,  and 
all  the  twelves  of  the  foundations  and  the  gates,  repre- 
senting the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb,  show  at 
least  that  a  very  exactly  finished,  cubically  squared 
society  is  understood,  which  exactness  will  be  some- 
how represented  in  the  definitely  composed  forms  of 
their  constructions.  How  too  could  it  liappen,  if  these 
prophecies  are  to  be  sublimated  into  merely  moral 
significances,  that  one  of  them  even  thinks  out  a 
scheme  of  ornamentation  perfectly  original,  hitherto 
scarcely  used  at  all,  yet  having  scope  enough  to  create  a 
new  order  of  architecture,  and  the  grandest,  most  soul- 
quickening  spectacle  of  composition  ever  conceived  ? 

We  see  then, — ^for  this  is  the  sum  of  all  we  have 
been  saying, — ^that  the  Holy  Spirit  organizes,  himself, 
the  communion  of  saints,  and  will  as  certainly  make 
places  or  build  houses  for  it  in  his  times.  Building 
for  religion  is  no  such  carnal  thing,  in  this  view,  as 
many  think  ;  and  if  we  build  well,  what  else  should 
we  do,  when  we  are  building  for  God  ?  We  so  far 
put  ourselves  in  connection  with  a  great  instinct  of 
religion,  and  with  eras  to  come,  when  the  grandest 
doxologies,  and  most  hallowed  prayers,  and  widest 
human  brotherhoods,  ^^ill  be  mounting  into  stone  by 
the  upward  lift  of  their  affinities.  Far  be  it  from  us 
to  reflect,  in  the  suggestions  here  offered,  on  the  dig- 
nity of  our  common  audience  chambers,  or  preaching- 
stands,  called  churches.  Still  farther  be  it  from  us  to 
stir  up   any  puffy  conceit ;  as  if,  in  the  building  of 


BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION.  33 

these,  we  were  doing  something  very  magnificent, 
such  as  belongs  to  the  last  great  day  and  final  glory 
of  our  religion.  We  need,  first  of  all,  to  understand 
that  this  is  the  day  of  small  things,  and  not  despise 
the  day  of  small  things  because  a  greater  is  to  come. 
Probably  never,  in  the  most  advanced  age  of  religion, 
will  our  small  structures,  called  churches,  be  dis- 
pensed with.  They  are,  and  are  always  to  be,  our 
synagogues,  standing  in  the  succession  of  the  syna- 
gogues, and  not  in  the  succession  of  the  temple,  as 
many  are  forward  without  right  to  assume.  These 
had  no  priesthood  and  no  altar.  They  were  the  peo- 
ple-houses of  religion,  where  they  came  together  every 
Sabbath,  to  read  the  word,  and  offer  their  interpreta- 
tions, and  blend  their  prayers.  And  these  synagogues 
were  the  really  interesting  places  of  the  old  religion, 
far  more  interesting,  in  most  respects,  than  the  tem- 
ple. Who  can  ever  think,  without  profoundest  respect 
and  tenderness,  of  the  dear  old  synagogue  of  Nazareth, 
where  Christ  attended,  "  as  his  custom  was,"  and 
where  he  began  his  ministry,  standing  up  to  read,  and 
saying  when  he  had  done :  *'  This  day  is  this  Scrip- 
ture fulfilled  in  your  ears" ?  What  scenes  took  place 
too  in  one  synagogue  or  another,  almost  every  Sab- 
bath, under  Christ's  ministry ;  in  Capernaum,  in  all 
the  synagogues  of  the  country  towns,  in  all  the  four 
hundred  and  more  of  Jerusalem !  And  then  after- 
ward, wherever  the  apostles  went  to  preach  Christ  in 
foreign  cities, — in  Damascus,  in  Antioch,  in  Alexan- 
dria, in  Corinth  and  Philippi, — here  it  was  that  they 


34  BUILDING    ERAS    IN    RELIGION. 

found  a  place  and  freedom  for  their  testimony. 
Hither,  in  like  manner,  we  must  come  for  all  high 
schooling  in  the  faith.  Here  we  are  to  get  our  in- 
citements, corrections,  reproofs,  consolations,  sacra- 
mental food,  and  dearest  helps  of  hrotherhood  ;  for  as 
these  were  always,  so  they  are  always  to  be,  our 
schools  of  godliness. 

And  yet  it  cannot  be  less  than  immensely  import- 
ant, as  we  cast  our  eye  forward,  and  take  our  auguries 
of  the  future,  that  we  do  not  cram  it  with  people  and 
things  in  our  own  petty  measures.  As  we  expect  a 
great  future,  so  we  must  expect  to  have  something 
great  done  in  it.  And  I  know  not  anything  that  will 
fire  us  with  higher  thoughts  and  tone  our  energies  for 
a  loftier  key,  than  to  see  just  what  our  prophets  saw 
with  so  great  triumph,  glorious  ages  of  building  for 
God,  such  as  never  were  beheld  before  ;  a  city  of  God, 
or  it  may  be  many,  complete  in  all  grandeur  and 
beauty,  and  representing  fitly  the  great  ideas,  and 
glorious  populations,  and  high  creative  powers  of  a 
universal  Christian  age. 


II. 

THE    NEW   EDUCATION.* 


We  agree,  in  common  speech,  to  call  educated  men, 
''  men  of  letters,^^  understanding  by  the  term  such  as 
have  been  trained  in  the  classics  and  the  literatures  of 
the  Greek  and  Latin  peoples.  For  the  time  was,  at 
the  revival  of  learning  so-called,  when  there  was  noth- 
ing else  to  begin  at  and  learn  from.  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Greek  and  Latin  poems,  histories  and  orations,  were 
the  general  stock  of  the  world's  mental  furniture.  It 
was  letters  then  or  nothing.  And  a  glorious  quicken- 
ing of  mind  began  thus  at  the  study  of  letters,  whence 
alone  it  could.  So  by  a  kind  of  scholarly  prescription, 
we  fell  into  the  opinion,  for  a  time,  that  letters  are 
and  must  be  the  staple  matter  of  all  high  education. 

But  there  was  a  day  of  things  to  come,  as  of  letters ; 
for  when  things  arrive  at  knowledge  in  the  discov- 
eries of  science,  they  too  will  claim  the  right  to  be 
educators,  taking  the  place,  or  sharing  the  place,  of 
letters.  And  as  letters  are  the  mind-stock  furnished 
by  men,  so  things  will  be  the  stock  of  endowment 

*  Delivered  at  New  Haven  before  the  Sheffield  Scientific  School, 
at  Commencement,  1870. 

(85) 


36  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

bodied  in  God's  own  works.  Their  revelations,  so 
long  hidden  from  discovery,  will  come  out  now  as  in 
fresh  glory,  setting  mind  aglow  with  new  intelli- 
gence. And  they  will  uncover  such  new  ranges  of 
thought,  and  such  worlds-full  of  meaning,  in  a  method 
so  exactly,  gloriously,  conformed  to  mind,  that  if  the 
great  human  teachers,  such  as  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
had  but  caught  the  sense  of  them,  it  is  even  doubtful 
whether  they  would  have  been  able  to  think  of  any- 
thing else.  Who  of  us  indeed  will  not  be  set  on  fire 
himself,  if  once  it  occurs  to  him  to  ask  how  it  must 
have  gone  with  either  of  these  two, — Plato,  for  exam- 
ple,— had  he  been  allowed  to  spread  his  great  soul 
suddenly  out  on  things  and  grasp  their  science  as  we 
do  to-day  ?  His  name  would  have  been  Plato  still, 
and  might  possibly  have  come  down  to  us  ;  but  the 
man,  the  character  that  filled  that  name,  must  have 
been  Avholly  another,  glorious  enough  doubtless,  but 
yet  with  another  sort  of  glory.  Finding  how,  in  that 
strangely  gifted  moment,  to  untwist  the  threads  and 
score  the  angles  and  velocities  of  light ;  flashing  in 
telescopic  vision  across  the  abysses,  and  formulating 
the  forces  and  times  of  the  sky ;  questioning  and  get- 
ting answer  from  the  clouds,  whence  they  rise,  and 
how  they  carry  their  loads  of  thunder  and  rain ; 
unyoking  analytically  the  atoms  of  the  world,  and  be- 
holding the  rush  of  their  attractions,  moving  all  in 
regimental  count  and  squadrons  of  formulse ;  finding 
how  color  is  magically  hid  in  the  colorless  white  beam 
of  the  day ;  and  having  opened  to  his  inspection  the 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  87 

miraculous  geometrizings  of  the  crystal  growths  ;  dis- 
tinguishing the  layers  and  times  of  the  rocks  below, 
and  reading,  so  to  speak,  in  their  tables  of  stone,  the 
autograph  record  of  innumerable  populations,  dead 
and  gone  before  the  stone  itself  was  made ;  able  also, 
canvassing  mere  upper  surface,  where  agriculture  digs 
and  delves  for  bread,  to  hear  exactly  what  the  soils 
ask  for  to  put  them  in  fertility,  and  set  their  deserts 
blooming  in  fresh  growths  ;  and  yet,  once  more,  and 
what  is  more  than  all,  if  he  could  have  gotten  full 
note  of  the  forces  unheard,  trooping  through  the 
masses  and  affinities  of  substance, — light,  heat,  at- 
traction, magnetism, — conceiving  the  innumerable 
engines  and  machineries  that  will  sometime  put  them 
in  harness  for  the  draught,  to  plough  through  even 
wide  oceans  against  the  tides  and  storms,  to  whirl 
across  whole  continents  in  journeys  that  are  races,  to 
leap  even  thousands  of  miles  through  gulfs  miles  deep, 
and  come  out  in  swift  couriership  and  dry,  with  mes- 
sages rushed  through  the  paths  of  the  sea ; — if,  I  say, 
great  Plato  could  have  sent  his  thought  through  these 
and  other  such-like  stupendous  revelations  of  science, 
in  some  brief  time,  and  come  out  with  any  breath 
left  in  him,  what  would  have  been  his  first  word  to 
the  young  men  of  his  Academy,  and  what  would  he 
have  bid  them  study  but  these  new,  fresh-born,  all- 
wondrous  things !  "  Here,  behold !  is  true  high  argu- 
ment for  you,  such  as  neither  I,  nor  Socrates,  nor  all 
sages  and  poets  could  ever  think  before." 

And  what  now  of  the  Dialogues,  what  of  the  Re- 


38  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

public,  what  of  all  the  fine  papers  he  was  going  to 
write  for  us  ?  Ah,  I  fear  he  would  have  dropped  them 
incontinently  out  of  mind,  made  a  full  end  of  them ! 
And  glad  enough  truly  we  have  a  right  to  be,  that  no 
such  stunning  revelation  befell  him ;  for  the  loss  of 
these  would  have  been  even  the  more  irreparable  that 
we  could  never  have  known  it. 

Now  any  one  of  us  who  has  barely  swept  over  the 
field  of  modern  science,  in  this  rapid  way  of  mental 
excursion,  must  clearly  see,  I  think,  that  in  such  new 
arrival  of  things,  a  new  education,  in  some  good  sense 
of  the  terms,  must  also  have  arrived.  The  world  itself 
is  now  become  God^s  classic,  a  book  that  is  perfect  in 
the  method,  grand  in  the  subject,  and  full  of  all  deep- 
est insight ;  having  more  language  for  mind  in  it, 
more  idea,  meaning,  music,  logical  endowment,  inter- 
penetration  of  beauty  and  force,  many  times  more  to 
raise  intelligence,  and  be  the  ensouling  both  of  order 
and  flame,  than  there  is  or  possibly  can  be  in  all  the 
contributions  of  letters  or  of  classic  genius  in  all  the 
past  ages ; — dwarfed,  of  course,  by  man's  infantile 
quantities,  and  flawed  by  mortal  blemish.  Sorry 
match  enough  all  books  of  man,  for  God's  book  writ- 
ten in  things. 

Since  the  world  then,  set  forth  by  science,  is  become, 
as  it  were,  a  new  intelligible  congener  at  all  points  to 
mind,  something  like  a  new  education,  it  is  plain  be- 
forehand, must  result ;  and  a  large  debate  is  now 
going  on  as  to  what  the  change  shall  be.  Some  will 
only  modernize  the  academic  courses  in  the  manner  of 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  39 

our  American  colleges,  adding  new  studies  as  new 
sciences  arrive.  Some  will  vote  the  classics  dead  and 
let  them  go.  Others  will  only  include  them  in  a  list 
of  optionals,  made  up  in  no  unity  of  reason,  but  liete- 
rogenic  as  the  caprices  of  choice  may  be,  making 
tlms  no  proper  university,  but  a  proper  omnibus  rather 
on  a  four  years'  trip,  with  any  such  inside  as  will  take 
the  passage.  I  cannot  undertake  to  discuss  this  very 
lieavy  matter  here,  and  happily  I  need  not,  because  it 
is  already  decided.  Enough  that  on  this  ground  there 
are  to  be  two  organizations  :  first,  the  old  Academic 
College,  working  for  all  ages  by  essentially  the  same 
gymnastic  plan  ;  and  secondly,  a  new  College  of  Prac- 
tical Science  that  belongs  more  particularly  to  the 
present  age  and  its  wants.  I  only  suggest,  with  a 
certain  feeling  of  satisfaction  that  there  is  a  distribu- 
tion of  nature  which  very  nearly  corresponds,  a  dis- 
tribution, that  is,  of  studies  for  what  is  inherent  and 
for  what  is  in  use,  of  the  pure  mathematics  and  the 
applied,  of  theoretic  science  and  practical  science,  of 
skill  in  the  classic  tongues  and  of  skill  in  this  or  that 
spoken  language.  If  it  should  be  our  opinion  that 
as  good  classics  are  written  now  in  our  modern  lan- 
guages as  are  brought  us  in  the  ancient,  still  our 
tongue  itself  dates  from  their  dead  motlierhood,  and 
to  that  we  must  go,  alivays  and  forever^  to  master  it. 
That  is  the  distinctively  elegant  learning,  because  it 
is  the  only  kind  of  learning  that  takes  us  back  to  the 
word  of  our  mother,  and  the  first  principles  of  our 
own  tongue. 


40  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

What  I  propose  then,  at  the  present  time,  is  to 
have  such  debate  as  we  may,  on  the  office  and  place 
of  the  scientific  school ;  providing  a  shorter  course  of 
study  for  such  as  have  only  shorter  means ;  a  course 
better  adapted,  apart  from  all  consideration  of  means, 
for  the  best  advance  of  a  certain  class  of  minds  ;  and 
especially  a  course  that  will  prepare  a  new  great  age 
of  business  faculty,  such  as  notoriously  the  college 
training  does  not.  The  school  of  practical  science, 
added  to  the  fixed  courses  of  the  college  plan,  pro- 
poses, in  fact,  a  universalizing  of  the  university  idea ; 
that  as  we  have  schools  of  theology  and  law  and 
medicine,  with  military  schools  outside,  to  serve  the 
military  uses,  so  we  are  to  have  as  many  schools  of 
applied  science  as  there  are  kinds  of  arts  to  be  scien- 
tifically shaped  and  helped. 

All  along,  in  our  scientific  gestation  period,  we  have 
been  moving  on  this  issue,  unawares  to  ourselves,  and 
now  at  last  the  day  of  birth  is  come.  For  here, 
exactly,  is  the  place  and  office  which  our  Connecticut 
Scientific  School,  the  Sheffield,  is  engaged  to  fill, 
wherein  it  is  entitled  to  a  degree  of  consideration, 
which  it  has  by  no  means  received  as  yet  from 
our  people.  Most  of  them  have  heard  that  such 
a  school  exists,  and  is  somehow  engaged  to  give 
scientific  help  to  agriculture,  mining,  metallurgy,  en- 
gineering, and  the  right  application  of  the  mechani- 
cal forces :  but  by  what  strides  of  progress,  almost 
transcending  belief,  it  is  moving  forward  on  a  great 
future  they  do  not  know.     Having  only  such  endow- 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  41 

ment  as  sufficed  for  the  state  of  infancy,  it  has  al- 
ready outgrown  both  the  endowment  and  the  infancy, 
gathering  in  a  large  corps  of  teachers,  resolute  men, 
gifted  with  all  highest  qualifications,  and  above  all, 
able  to  find  much  bread  in  their  enthusiasm.  By  the 
unwonted  force  of  that,  backed  by  their  formerly 
single  benefactor,  who  is  now  being  joined  by  others  ; 
having  also  a  small  agricultural  fund  in  the  public 
lands,  they  have  gotten  their  halls  and  laboratories 
and  cabinets  and  all  best  kinds  of  apparatus,  and 
have  gathered  in,  by  their  successes  in  teaching,  a 
larger  and  larger  following  of  pupils,  till  now,  at  last, 
they  count  as  many  on  the  ground  as  one  liundred 
and  forty,  putting  their  institution  far  in  advance 
of  all  other  like  institutions  in  the  country,  un- 
less West  Point  be  taken  as  an  exception.  Having 
won  for  it  such  precedence,  almost  gratis,  they  have 
certainly  won  a  right  also  to  live  and  have  their  en- 
dowment solidly  made  up  to  them ;  for  they,  plainly 
enough,  cannot  live  on  their  enthusiasm  always.  And 
this,  exactly,  is  getting  to  be  the  opinion  of  many,  as 
we  see  by  the  growing  additions  made  to  their  funds ; 
for  since  they  bear  the  flag  so  well,  we  are  learning 
to  have  it  as  the  point  of  honor  to  send  them  bravely 
on  with  cheers. 

'  But  I  am  not  here  to  speak  as  their  advocate,  partly 
because  they  do  not  ask  it,  and  partly  because  they 
can  do  it  for  themselves  much  better  than  I  can  do  it  for 
them.  What  I  am  going  to  say,  therefore,  will  not  be 
for  this  particular  school,  but  for  the  general  subject. 


42  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

It  does  not  appear  to  have  been  observed,  as  it  very 
well  might  be,  that  the  progress  of  natural  science 
must  finally  bring  on  just  the  crisis  which  has  now 
arrived ;  placing  every  people  or  nation  that  expects 
to  have  a  forward  position  in  the  world,  under  a  fixed 
necessity  of  culture  in  the  uses  of  science.  What 
immense  strides  have  been  made  in  all  works  of  en- 
terprise and  arts  of  production,  under  the  new-dis- 
covered laws  and  principles,  is  sufficiently  observed 
and  is  even  a  stale  kind  of  story.  But  the  end  is  not 
yet ;  the  story  is  only  begun. 

The  one  single  science  of  chemistry,  for  example, 
what  has  it  not  done  ?  See  the  old  dead-matter  world, 
dead  and  impotent  all  through,  even  as  omnipotent 
steam  is  dead  in  the  quiet  inefficiency  of  water,  quick- 
ened, so  to  speak,  in  every  dullest  atom,  and  leaping 
out  in  fiery  potency  to  stir  whatever  stirs  for  it ;  gases 
innumerable,  new  creatures  altogether,  getting  free, 
to  be  known  as  the  ghost-world  of  matter ;  new 
metals,  new  salts,  solvents,  colors,  oils,  pigments ; 
old  quantities  inert  made  thunders  of;  navigation 
re-created  and  oceans  reduced  to  ponds ;  whole  months 
of  old-fashioned  -time  condensed  into  single  days ; 
freights,  bulletins,  populations,  thoughts,  put  whirl- 
ing as  in  mazes  of  new  celerity  ;  fires,  forges,  wheels, 
laboratories  innumerable,  and  shops  that  are  populous 
towns, — where  shall  we  stop  recounting  only  what  this 
single  science  has  done  ? 

And  yet  all  this  we  seem  to  think,  because  the 
science  new-born  has  so  far  applied  itself.     What  need 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  43 

then  have  we  of  schools  to  conduct  such  applications  ? 
All  the  greater  need,  I  answer,  that  so  many  wider, 
vaster  applications  are  not  made,  but  are  only  ready 
to  be.  See  how  it  goes  with  iron  and  steel.  What 
have  we  better  known,  since  even  Tubal-cain's  day, 
than  how  to  make  them,  work  them  and  get  a  great 
part  of  our  civilization  out  of  them  ?  And  yet  our 
processes  have  been  so  changed  within  a  very  few 
years  that  we  seem  to  have  known  just  nothing  about 
them.  Our  chemists  showed  us  first  how  steel  is  differed 
from  iron  by  the  union  of  carbon.  We  enjoyed  the 
really  important  discovery  for  a  long  time,  when  by 
and  by  the  further  discovery  followed  that  pig-iron 
only  contained  too  much  carbon.  Whereupon  Besse- 
mer puts  himself  to  burning  out  a  part  of  the  carbon, 
so  as  to  leave  what  before  was  pig-iron,  steel,  instead 
of  roasting  carbon  into  iron  already  decarbonized. 
He  succeeded,  but  found  on  trial  that  he  could  not 
stop  the  burning-out  process  accurately  enough  to 
make  the  new  method  work  evenly,  as  it  must  to  be 
available.  Not  to  be  defeated  so,  he  took  his  lesson 
at  first  principles  again,  and  began  once  more,  pro- 
posing now  to  burn  out  all  the  carbon  in  his  principal 
retort,  having  another  slung  by  its  side,  with  just 
enough  in  it,  by  weight,  of  the  supercarbonized  pig 
not  burned  but  only  melted,  to  give  the  needed  stock 
of  carbon  for  all.  Thus  at  every  step  of  his  invention 
he  was  feeling  after  steel  in  pig-iron  by  strict  laws  of 
chemistry,  till  finally  he  came  down  square  upon  it. 
His  problem  was  triumphantly  and  heroically  finished. 


44  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

So  that  now,  by  one  of  the  grandest  strides  ever  made 
in  the  arts,  he  is  girdling  the  world  with  cast-steel  in 
a  way  that  makes  it  only  a  little  more  expensive  kind 
of  iron. 

The  same  story  exactly  is  just  now  ready  in  respect 
to  coal.  Did  we  not  know  all  about  it,  and  how  to 
get  the  heat  of  it,  a  long  time  ago  ?  But  the  new 
Siemen's  furnace,  utilizing  it  by  first  turning  it  into 
gas  and  burning  that  in  a  blast  of  hot  air,  abstracting 
also  the  heat  as  it  is  used,  and  storing  it  in  bricks  to 
be  used  a  dozen  times  over,  saving  a  whole  four-fifths 
of  the  expense, — what  is  this  profoundly  cunning  fetch 
of  economy  but  an  application,  yesterday,  of  principles 
of  science  well  known  long  ago,  and  waiting  to  be  thus 
applied  ? 

So  of  all  the  other  sciences ;  our  application  of  them 
is  yet  scant  and  imperfect.  Of  the  12,000,000,000 
already  expended  for  railroads  in  our  country,  what 
do  they  tell  us  but  that  20  per  cent,  at  least, — 1400,- 
000,000, — has  been  thrown  away  by  bad  engineering, 
such  as  more  and  better  science  would  have  avoided. 
And  what  do  we  hear,  but  that  our  own  young 
school  of  science  has  already  saved  money  enough  to 
the  State,  by  simply  exposing  the  worthlessness  of 
worthless  manures,  to  endow  it  ten  times  over  more 
sufficiently  than  it  can  ever  hope  to  be  endowed  ? 

It  could  not  be  more  plain,  in  short,  that  as  a  peo- 
ple we  have  interests  of  growth  and  production  de- 
pending on  a  more  scientific  equipment  in  our  processes, 
than  many  of  us  are  yet  able  to  conceive.     ^Ye  are  a 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  45 

proverbially  sharp-witted  people,  and  we  make  a  great 
many  lucky  hits  of  invention,  because  our  wits  are 
nimbled  for  almost  anything  by  our  ambitious  but 
rather  light  and  thin  education.  But  thriving  thus  by 
our  wits  and  by  lucky  accidents  and  conditions  will 
not  hold  us  long.  Solid  endowments  are  indispensa- 
ble in  the  long  run.  And  how  much  does  it  signify 
that  we  probably  have  not  any  two  men,  in  all  our 
shops  and  superintendencies,  who,  without  more 
science,  could  ever  have  discovered  the  cast-steeling 
process  of  Bessemer  or  the  heating  process  of  Siemen ! 
Down  to  the  time  of  the  Great  Exhibition  of  London, 
the  British  people,  having  such  advantages  in  their 
supplies  of  coal  and  iron,  felt  sure  of  an  easy  prece- 
dence in  all  the  arts  depending  on  these  two  staples. 
Meantime  the  great  French  iron-mongering,  machine- 
building  establishments  of  Creusot,  every  day  enlarg- 
ing, are  becoming  schools  of  monitorial  instruction, 
so  to  speak,  where  their  designers  and  workmen  are 
being  trained  in  eye  and  hand,  in  scientific  adjust- 
ments and  the  propagations  of  forces,  in  the  study  of 
forms  and  the  sciences  and  graces  of  mechanical 
movement,  and  behold  it  comes  out,  in  the  Great 
Exposition  at  Paris,  that  the  shops  of  British  art  are 
ignominiously  beaten  at  every  point !  Their  designs 
are  coarse  and  clumsy  ;  their  engines  are  so  badly  con- 
structed, as  respects  the  saving  of  heat  and  of  iron  and 
also  of  friction,  as  to  virtually  put  them  out  of  the  market. 
And  it  has  actually  resulted  since,  that  the  English 
railroads  are  importing  locomotive  engines  largely  from 


46  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

France.  It  would  even  be  amusing,  if  it  were  a  little 
less  sad,  to  hear  the  four  great  committees  of  English- 
men, comprising  the  aristocracy  of  the  realm  at  one 
end,  and  the  skilled  workmen  at  the  other,  returning 
from  the  French  Exposition,  testif}dng  in  reports  that 
have  the  minor  key  and  the  sound  almost  of  a  cry, 
that  England  must  have  schools  of  applied  science,  or 
else  go  down  utterly  in  the  arts  of  production. 

Shortly  after,  so  great  is  the  concern  excited  by 
this  discomfiture,  that  J.  Scott  Russell,  of  "  Great 
Eastern  "  celebrity,  a  man  of  the  highest  capacity  and 
a  thoroughly  trained  scholar,  hastens  or  is  hastened 
off  to  the  Continent  to  re-examine  the  schools  of  tech- 
nical science,  with  which  he  was  already  acquainted, 
and  make  his  report  of  them.  He  comes  back,  telling 
his  people  very  frankly  that  they  are  the  worst  edu- 
cated nation  of  Europe.  He  spreads  out  the  grand 
scheme  of  technical  training  in  Prussia.  He  describes 
the  magnificent  Polytechnicum  of  little  Switzerland, 
at  Zurich,  showing  how  it  is  already  drawing  off  some 
of  the  finest,  daintiest  kinds  of  manufacture  both  from 
England  and  France,  giving  to  this  poor  little  people, 
having  neither  coal  nor  iron,  a  fair  large  part  of  the 
world's  most  productive  industries.  He  spreads  out 
in  particular  the  art  education  map  of  the  little  duchy 
of  Wiirtemberg,  comprising  1,700,000  people,  showing 
how  everything  is  taught  scientifically,  as  respects  the 
principal  arts  of  life,  even  down  to  the  shoeing  of 
horses,  and  tells  his  countrymen  that  if  they  were  to 
provide  instruction  according  to  the   same  ratio  of 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  47 

supply,  they  would  have  11  universities  of  applied 
science,  with  49  professors  each,  and  more  than  5,000 
students ;  11  subordinate  trade  schools  or  colleges, 
with  26  professors  each,  and  6,500  students  ;  and  sub- 
ordinate to  these,  in  towns  and  villages,  1,180  schools, 
having  425  masters  and  more  than  8,000  pupils ; 
whereas,  in  place  of  all  these,  they  have  now  almost 
nothing  to  show  but  a  high  university  education,  which 
rises  to  its  summit  in  classical  and  logical  studies, — 
dead  the  first  by  time,  and  dead  the  second  by  nature, 
because  it  is  too  dry  to  be  alive  ;  both  having  only  the 
least  relation  possible  to  uses  in  life's  productive 
works. 

The  point,  then,  at  which  we  arrive  in  this  economic 
exposition,  is  briefly  this ;  that  a  new  crisis  now  is 
pending  for  the  nations,  pending  for  us  as  truly  as  for 
any ;  for  whatever  nations  or  peoples  get  most  for- 
ward practically  in  science,  we  now  begin  to  see,  must 
bring  all  others  under.  And  this  is  just  as  true  for  the 
most  isolated  and  separate  nations  as  for  any.  We 
ourselves  are  in  the  battle  and  cannot  escape  it,  and 
nothing  is  left  us  but  to  strip  to  it  and  go  in  for  the 
completest  and  best  scientific  education  possible. 

At  this  point  we  encounter  too  a  new  issue,  made 
up  for  culture  itself,  that  has  possibly  a  greater  sig- 
nificance than  any  mere  culture  in  letters  can  ever  be 
supposed  to  have.  In  these  applications  of  science, 
the  problem  is  to  inaugurate  in  fact  a  new  creatorship  ; 
and  creatorship  is  a  type  of  advancement  that  reaches 
far.     Hitherto  we  have  been  occupied  mainly  with 


48  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

the  promise  made  of  economic  benefits.  But  these 
are  only  rude  beginnings ;  better  and  higher  things 
are  to  come  after.  What  else  do  we  now  see  in 
some  of  the  facts  just  referred  to,  but  that  we  are 
come  already  to  a  point  where  beauty  of  design,  ele- 
gance of  form,  felicity  and  grace  of  composition,  are 
more  and  more  distinctly  proved  to  be  the  sme  qua 
non  of  success  ?  And  here  it  is  that  the  true  creative 
ability  is  to  meet  the  final  test ;  a  test  that  is  rigidly 
mental,  requiring  the  sharpest  and  most  subtle  per-  { 
ceptions,  tastes  the  most  delicate,  adjustments  in 
the  nicest  skill  and  a  piercing  insight  of  nature's  laws 
and  properties,  such  as  no  mind,  which  has  not 
somehow  come  into  the  eternal  beauty,  can  ever 
hope  to  attain.  And  whether  this  kind  of  culture  is 
not  going  some  time  even  to  exceed  the  classic  refine- 
ment, is  certainly  no  absurd  question.  The  German 
people  are  a  people  admitted  to  be  not  surpassed  in 
the  accomplishments  of  letters  and  elegant  scholar^ 
ship ;  but  there  is  a  clear  possibility  that  their  new 
creatorship,  begun  in  the  applications  of  science,  will 
sometime  bring  them  to  the  flower  in  a  more  various-  i 
ly,  multifariously  creative  beauty  ;  even  as  God's  own 
beauty  flowered  in  the  colors,  the  shapes,  the  articu- 
lated functions  and  the  wondrously  composed  inter- 
play of  parts  in  the  constitutive  order  of  his  work.  . 
Besides,  there  is  a  robustness  of  quality  in  this  matter 
of  creatorship  that  far  exceeds  the  thin,  second-hand 
way  of  classic  imitation.  It  goes  out  among  things, 
down  into  their  subtleties,  up  along  their  heights,  and 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  49 

reads  them  through  and  through,  as  by  some  force  of 
personal  co-attainment.  And  then,  as  it  is  given  to 
man  for  his  highest  distinction  to  be  the  new  creator 
of  the  world,  any  people  farthest  advanced  in  creator- 
ship  will  have  the  highest  consciousness  and  know 
their  fit  honor  as  being  in  the  completest  form  of  life. 
Having  nature,  so  to  speak,  in  dominion,  they  will 
have  the  genuine  exaltation  of  power ;  great  sentiments 
too,  that  are  not  born  of  scholarship,  and  are  only  the 
better  enunciated  without  classic  quotations.  And 
yet,  being  in  affinity  with  all  ornament,  they  will  have 
the  classics  also  ;  asking  for  more  dead  languages,  not 
fewer,  willing  even  to  go  back  on  the  Sanscrit,  if  they 
may  but  know  more  perfectly  the  timbers  and  articu- 
lations of  their  own  living  tongue. 

We  come  upon  a  question  thus  which  is  difficult, 
viz.,  what  the  schools  or  colleges  of  practical  science 
are  going  to  do  for  the  training  of  mind  ? 

And  here  I  willingly  yield,  at  the  outset,  the  im- 
mense distinction  between  equipment  and  education, 
between  the  outfit  of  a  worker  among  causes,  and 
the  education  of  a  mind  for  power  over  mind.  Educa- 
tion is  confessedly  what  educes  or  draws  out  mind  ; 
hence  the  word.  The  colleges  undertake  to  do  it 
gymnastically ;  that  is  by  a  training  in  the  ancient 
classics  and  the  pure  mathematics ;  adding  a  few 
branches  of  experimental  science  just  to  make  a  begin- 
ning of  general  intelligence.  Study  for  study's  sake 
is  their  law,  and  this  kind  of  education  they  call  lib- 


50  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

eral,  I  suppose,  because  the  pupil  is  not  harnessed  in  it 
to  any  of  life's  labors.  Having  no  thought  as  yet  of 
ends  or  destinations,  he  is  to  be  separated  thus  from 
the  vulgar  prejudices  of  the  shop  and  the  market  and 
allowed  to  have  his  growth  in  a  way  more  close  to  his 
own  nature.  And  so,  educated  for  no  particular  ends, 
he  will  be  the  better  educated  for  all  ends.  Thus 
only,  it  is  claimed,  will  the  great  scholars  and  elegant 
writers  and  the  men  most  able  to  discuss  learned 
questions  be  trained.  All  the  universalized  minds 
must  have,  it  is  said,  this  universalizing  motherhood. 
No  full  round  man  can  be  educated  in  particular  to 
this  or  that,  and  full  round  men  we  do  amazingly  want 
in  all  the  walks  of  life. 

But  granting,  as  we  may,  the  argument,  it  does  not 
follow  that  if  we  propose  something  short  of  this  we 
propose  anything  contrary  to  it.  If  we  seem  to  pro- 
pose an  equipment  and  not  an  education,  that  equi}> 
ment  will  be  education,  just  according  to  the  strain 
of  mind-labor  it  has  cost ;  and  the  imagining,  think- 
ing, combining  power  of  the  man  may  be  drawn  out 
even  more  energetically  and  effectually,  than  it  would 
be  by  twice  as  many  years  of  routine  study.  What 
gymnast,  whether  of  body  or  mind,  ever  wrestles  in 
such  fierce  application,  as  he  that  is  in  throes  of  labor 
to  make  out  his  great  invention  ? 

After  all  there  is  no  patent  way  of  making  a  mind, 
or  preparing  the  out-birth  of  a  great  soul's  power.  It 
will  grow  by  a  pine-knot  candle  as  well  as  by  the  clas- 
sic lamp  of  a  college.     If  it  cannot  be  born  out  of 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  51 

the  highest  advantages,  then  it  will  be  out  of  such  as 
it  can  have.  We  propose,  in  fact,  a  less  complete  and 
so  far  inferior  course,  in  the  school  of  practical  science, 
because  it  will  carry  some  really  superior  effects,  be- 
getting more  precise  ideas  of  things,  giving  the  man- 
ege of  nature's  causes  more  perfectly,  and  letting  the 
pupil  farther  in  among  them.  As  the  term  is  to  be 
shorter  and  more  sharply  set,  we  expect  to  work 
faster,  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  a  vast  number  of 
minds  will  be  sprung  for  a  great  and  grand  history, 
that  wpuld  otherwise  never  break  fetter  at  all.  It 
would  not  be  strange  if  some  of  the  very  best  profes- 
sors of  Latin  and  Greek  should  be  darted  forth  out  of 
these  limited  studies  into  just  those  improved  methods 
of  study  which  their  own  necessities  have  compelled, 
and  for  which  all  these  ages  have  been  waiting.  We 
can  never  tell  what  a  soul  is  going  to  break  into,  when 
it  is  once  really  started  into  action.  It  may  even 
break  into  theology,  asking  leave  of  nobody ! 

But  there  is  a  way  of  speaking,  on  the  part  of  cer- 
tain adhesionists  of  the  college  method  and  the  col- 
lege ideas,  that  does  not  allow  us  even  the  modified 
indulgence  here  claimed.  They  speak,  oftener  than 
we  like  to  hear  them,  even  slightingly  or  contemptu- 
ously of  studies  that  are  for  uses,  as  if  these  were  the 
going  after  knowledge  as  a  trade  or  to  get  a  living  by 
it.  They  do  not  consider  how  very  close  upon  exactly 
this  are  the  studies  of  the  learned  professions.  Arc 
they  therefore  sordid  studies  ?  Or  are  they  culmina- 
tions rather,  where  the  young  man,  trained  by  lessons, 


62  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

goes  above  them  or  beyond  them,  to  find  the  uses 
in  which  their  value  lies  ?  Besides,  if  it  is  a  matter 
in  point  to  make  studies  look  contemptible,  what 
is  easier  than  to  put  the  stupidest  possible  face  on 
the  college  method  by  just  calling  it  the  dumb-bell 
method  ?  For,  what  are  we  told,  but  that  education  is 
to  make  the  mind's  arms  supple  before  the  battle  of 
life  begins,  by  training  them  gymnastically,  that  is 
by  studies  for  the  study's  sake,  and  what  is  that  but 
the  dumb-bell  method  ? 

Now  all  such  arts  of  derogation  are  only  tricks  of 
speech  and  not  arguments.  At  any  rate,  I  undertake, 
in  simple  disregard  of  the  first,  to  make  downright 
assertion  of  the  honors  of  practical  science.  Which 
in  fact  is  nobler,  grander  to  thought,  and  more  god- 
like, science  that  beholds  a  use,  or  science  that  is  only 
science  ?  What  in  fact  is  the  true  honor  of  science 
itself,  if  it  is  not  in  the  power  it  has  to  multiply  good  ; 
to  create  wealth,  to  arm,  and  re-endow,  and  recom- 
pose,  and  re-create  the  world,  making  gods  of  men  ? 
And  where  has  the  world  made  heroes  of  a  nobler 
kind,  more  bloodless,  higher  in  achievement,  con- 
querors in  a  grander  key  ?  Just  the  thing,  indeed, 
to  be  admired  in  practical  science,  is  that  it  is  prac- 
tical. And  we  want  even  great  institutions  endowed 
for  it,  simply  because  they  will  come  bringing  uses, 
even  God's  intended  uses,  when  he  put  things  into 
their  laws,  and  laws  into  things. 

In  statements  like  these  it  will  be  seen  that,  while 
I  give  in  readily  to  the  superior  advantages  of  the  old 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  53 

education  as  related  to  certain  modes  of  culture,  I 
am  not  afraid  to  claim  for  the  new  certain  other 
advantages  that,  looking  only  to  culture  itself,  weigh 
heavily  in  the  scale.  Let  me  take  my  liberty  in  trac- 
ing a  little  way  some  of  these  comparisons.  And  if 
I  seem  to  speak  one-sidedly,  as  an  advocate,  it  will 
only  be  that  I  am  righting  up  an  equilibrium  not  yet 
adjusted. 

The  students  of  the  college  method  are  commonly 
entered  at  an  early  age,  when  they  have  as  yet  no 
conception  formed  of  what  they  are  going  to  be.  The 
rich  father  has  declared  that  his  son  Hopeful  shall 
have  the  very  best  education  money  will  buy.  And 
then  the  problem  of  the  college  is, — alas  !  there  is  no 
problem  in  the  high  mathematics  half  as  difficult, — 
how  to  give  the  boy  such  best  education,  when  he  does 
not  himself  care  a  fig  whether  it  is  good  or  bad.  He 
is  here,  in  fact,  just  because  he  could  not  as  well  be 
anywhere  else.  All  such  are  going,  of  course,  into 
prescribed  studies,  if  any  ;  and  then  we  shall  hear  it 
as  their  fine  distinction,  that  they  are  given  to  study 
only  for  the  study's  sake.  Whereas,  if  they  could 
speak  for  themselves,  they  would  say  how  often,  No, 
not  for  the  study's  sake,  but  for  the  dogged  lesson's 
sake  !  These  now  are  the  drones  of  the  college,  and 
are  going  to  be  the  graduated  dullards  and  do-nothings 
of  the  liberal  education.  College  life  and  society  are 
largely  infested  by  these  insignificants,  and  the  at- 
mosphere is  more  or  less  untoned  by  them  as  regards 
everything  in  the  nature  of  true  application.     In  the 


54  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

school  of  applied  science  there  is  no  place  for  such. 
If  they  come  into  it,  as  flies  into  a  trap,  because  ex- 
periment looks  more  tempting  than  study,  they  will 
scarcely  dare  to  light,  lest  such  drill  of  experiment 
should  be  the  death  of  them.  Young  men  coming  in 
hither  will  be  generally  such  as  come  with  a  meaning, 
and  whoever  has  the  grace  to  mean  something  is  very 
likely  to  he  something ;  having  always  a  matter  in 
hand  to  be  done,  by  whatever  study,  industry,  and 
close  tension  of  faculty  are  needed. 

The  college  course  is  oftenest  commended,  because 
it  covers  so  great  length  of  time, — ^ten  years,  at  least, 
when  the  preparatory  and  subsequent  professional 
studies  are  included, — but  the  commendation,  gen- 
erally good,  is,  I  verily  believe,  a  matter  of  real  dis- 
advantage to  many.  Short  work  is  commonly  sharp 
work,  and  long  work  is  commonly  dull.  Kept  so  long 
out  of  life  too,  and  trained  so  nearly  in  the  cloister 
habit,  the  pupil's  living  nature  is  partly  extirpated. 
So  much  study  for  study's  sake,  apart  from  life's 
feeling,  and  subject  to  the  overweening  authority  of 
books  and  teachers,  unnerves  the  will  and  dries  away 
the  juices  and  moist  natural  sympathies,  which  are 
often  the  really  best  talent  a  man  has,  leaving  him  a 
kind  of  manikin  or  lay-figure  only  of  learning.  He 
is  educated  partly  out  of  his  wits  in  being  educated 
into  them.  His  education  is  incubus,  making  all  in- 
spiration, all  abandon  of  action,  all  fervors  of  high 
engagement  forever  after  impossible.  Certain  high, 
strong,  masculine  natures  will  bear  this  half-age  of 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  55 

discipline  and  keep  their  mettle  rising.  Certain  dry 
souls  too,  will  go  through  this  baking  process  of  years, 
without  becoming  at  all  more  dry.  But  the  less  posi- 
tive and  freer  natures  will,  how  often,  be  subjugated, 
or  even  stifled  by  it.  A  great  many  such,  it  costs 
nothing  to  believe,  would  do  better  trained  by  a  shorter 
process  ;  better  in  the  pulpit,  better  at  the  law ;  even  as 
some  of  our  old-time  Methodist  preachers,  trained  in  the 
saddle,  saved  their  natural  quantities  to  substitute 
their  education,  pouring  them  out  full  flood,  till  by  and 
by  they  had  learned  gloriously  how  ;  or  as  lawyers, 
beginning  partly  with  a  knack  instead  of  a  brief,  go 
in  to  gain  their  causes  by  being  causes  themselves.  In 
these  scantier  methods,  the  souls  untrammeled  take 
inspirations  more  easily,  and  are  moved  all  the  more 
nimbly  and  naturally  that  they  qualify  as  experts, 
and  not  by  indoctrination.  And  if  they  seem,  for  a 
time,  to  be  too  little  polished  by  letters,  they  will  com- 
monly be  polished  afterwards  by  the  rub  of  their  en- 
gagements, and  will  learn,  as  Bunyan  did,  the  uses  of 
words  by  seeking  words  for  their  uses.  They  will, 
probably,  have  as  much  more  impetus  too,  as  they  are 
educated  closer  to  life's  feeling  and  the  concerns  of 
the  hour. 

It  was  formerly  a  large  defect  in  the  academic 
method,  and  I  fear  it  may  be  now,  that  it  gave  so 
little  attention  to  the  training  of  the  senses  and  the 
sense-perceptions.  It  kept  the  pupil  wholly  at  the 
book  lesson-drill  to  give  him  the  handle  of  his 
mind,  and  left  him  too  often  a  good  deal  less  able  than 


bd  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

he  should  be  to  handle  his  hands.  He  has  no  practised 
eye.  All  his  faculties  woiidward  work  confusedly- 
still,  as  if  they  had  nothing  to  do  with  his  mind. 
Trained  to  no  dashing  out  in  chalk  of  plants,  animals, 
organs,  rock-formations  and  the  like,  he  has  no  close 
observation  of  anything.  He  acquires  dexterity  and 
precision  of  motion  from  no  closely  exact  adjustments 
of  cameras  and  microscopes,  and  from  no  critically 
nice  manipulations  in  chemistry,  such  as  will  save  his 
experiments  and  his  clothes.  He  probably  writes  a 
bad  hand,  and  graduates  a  clumsy  fumbler,  left-handed 
in  both  hands,  and  scarcely  more  dexterous  in  his 
head ;  for  no  matter  how  good  a  scholar  one  may  be 
in  the  classics,  or  the  mathematics,  if  still  he  has  no 
proper  sense  of  colors,  lines,  and  shapes,  and  no  pre- 
cise art  of  handling,  or  of  touch,  he  will  just  so  far  be 
wanting  in  a  genuine  mental  eye  ;  and  the  fault  will 
come  out  somewhere,  in  his  law-point,  or  his  deed  of 
amputation,  or  it  may  be  in  his  sermons. 

Again,  it  will  be  found  that  the  teaching  of  science 
in  mere  class-lessons,  apart  from  experiment  by  the 
pupil,  where  that  is  possible,  and  apart  from  all  uses 
of  application,  is  the  very  worst  method  as  respects 
the  distinctness  and  real  intelligence  of  the  impress- 
ions given.  The  pure  mathematics  can  be  taught  in 
that  manner ;  for  these,  if  learned  at  all,  can  only  be 
accurately  thought ;  but  the  science  of  things  must  be 
gotten  out  of  things  themselves ;  that  is,  by  asking 
what  they  are  for,  what  they  are  doing  or  will  do  ? 
Besides,  there  is  a  large  class  of  pupils  whose  nature 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  57 

it  is  to  be  looking  always  most  keenly  after  the  uses 
of  things,  and  who  can  only  drop  into  utter  listlessness 
and  disappointment  when  put  to  the  learning  of  them 
by  routine  lessons.  Pupils  of  a  different  habit  might 
take  to  such  abstractive  lessons  more  naturally,  and 
might  get  a  certain  kind  of  knowledge  by  rote,  but  the 
more  inquisitive  practical  sort  will  get  distinctly  noth- 
ing. In  the  beautiful  science  of  chemistry,  for  exam- 
ple, illustrated  by  the  most  fascinatingly  brilliant  ex- 
periments, and  quickening  to  thought  as  to  the  solid 
matter  of  the  world  itself,  it  is  even  mournful  to  see, 
from  the  answers  of  the  college  examinations,  how 
little  science  mere  spectatorship  has  taught.  Muddle, 
— muddle  only !  No  insight  of  ideas  and  laws,  no 
science  at  all !  Even  bright,  high-working  minds  get, 
how  often,  nothing  but  the  lingo  of  it  for  diverting  uses 
in  the  college  yard.  Science  that  it  is  of  the  mind 
under  foot,  most  potentializing  of  all  sciences  in  the 
causes  it  reveals,  showing  the  atoms  leaping  to  their 
laws  and  rushing  as  in  fiery  fervors  of  intelligence 
after  their  mates,  how  commonly  is  nothing  gotten 
from  it  still  for  the  mind's  endowment !  I  speak  the 
more  properly  thus,  and  with  the  better  right,  that  my 
own  experience  in  the  matter  testifies  only  of  the 
truest  personal  advantage.  For  it  happened  that,  with 
two  or  three  others  in  a  large  class,  I  was  taken  by 
the  science  enough  to  get -hold  of  the  keys,  and  it  has 
been  with  me  ever  since,  meeting  me  at  almost  every 
turn,  bringing  new  refreshments  of  example  and  dear 
suggestion,  and  pouring  in  more  copious  riches  on  me 


58  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

than  all  the  other  more  gymnastic  studies  of  my 
course  together.  Indeed,  I  seem  to  have  had  these 
imponderable  entities,  these  atomic  yearnings,  these 
inorganic  half  mystical  forces  keeping  me  company, 
and  to  have  gone  along,  as  it  were,  socially  among 
them,  where  some  other  of  my  friends,  better  educated 
and  more  gifted,  have  been  seeming  only  to  see,  but 
to  get  no  sign.  Most  sad  loss  do  they  make  who  have 
gotten  what  they  call  the  liberal  accomplishments  of 
classic  study  and  missed  the  magic,  world-transform- 
ing wealth  of  this  one  study. 

They  need  not  miss  obtaining  a  very  good  knowl- 
edge of  the  science  in  the  college  course,  and  yet  how 
commonly  will  they,  when  it  is  taught  by  no  labora- 
tory practice,  and  no  manipulations  of  experiment 
conducted  by  themselves.  Here  their  mind  would  be 
set  to  more  than  holding  their  eyes  for  a  lecture,  more 
than  passing  in  a  lesson, — to  the  harnessing  of  a 
power,  and  the  discovering  of  things  by  their  laws 
accurately  enough  to  know  what  they  will  do,  or  what 
can  be  done  with  them  and  by  them.  And  this  girds 
them  in  so  closely  that  their  faculty  is  put  in  stress 
for  exact  comprehension,  and  their  mental  education, 
if  we  speak  of  that,  is  most  solidly,  soberly  advanced ; 
and  the  matters  learned  do  not  now  go  into  mind  to  be 
lodged  there  as  dead  quantities  that,  being  learned, 
are  there  entombed  and  done  with,  but  as  forces  of 
onward  impulsion  and  expectant  vigor.  It  will  be  as 
if  the  steam  power,  the  electric  celerity,  the  fierce 
oxygen,  the  iron,  were  putting  their  strong  nature  into 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  59 

the  boy  or  the  man,  to  be  endowment  and  momentum 
for  his  works  and  character. 

As  in  chemistry,  so  in  mining,  mineralogy,  geology, 
engine-building,  engineering, — these  and  all  other 
sciences,  between  astronomy  on  one  side  and  entomol- 
ogy on  the  other,  will  be  studied  best,  most  effectually 
felt  out  and  sounded,  in  their  uses  and  applications. 
They  will  not  be  shammed  in  this  manner,  and  the 
students,  going  after  them  with  appetite,  will  not  have 
their  minds  debauched  in  them.  And  it  will  be  a 
considerable  advantage  too,  afterward,  when  they  go 
out  into  life,  that  having  been  thus  practically  trained, 
they  will  not  be  laughed  at  as  incapables  of  learning, 
but  will  be  accepted  as  the  true  Magistri  Artium,  in  the 
original  and  living  sense  of  the  degree. 

And  now,  having  spoken  thus  freely  of  points  where 
the  old  education  has  its  disadvantages,  and  the  new 
its  better  advantages,  will  it  be  imagined  or  inferred 
by  some  that  I  am  willing  to  take  down  the  honors 
thus  of  the  fuller,  more  protracted,  and,  in  some 
possible  respects,  more  fertilizing  courses  of  the  col- 
leges heretofore  in  use  ?  Far  be  it.  I  accept  no  such 
construction  as  that.  I  can  think  of  it  only  as  absurd. 
No,  a  true  classic  culture  can  never  be  antiquated,  and 
if  I  seem  to  raise  a  crusade  for  the  shorter  methods 
of  applied  science,  I  do  it  in  the  clear  understanding 
that  such  shorter  methods  are  wanted,  and  that  I  am 
doing  nothing  against,  but  everything  for  the  advance- 
ment of  the  old  methods.  For  if  we  push  the  new 
education  to  its  utmost  efficiency,  and  far  enough  to 


60  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

practically  fill  the  whole  tier  of  life  for  which  it  is 
organized,  making  every  walk  of  industry  and  enter- 
prise, every  farm-house,  factory,  mine,  trade,  road, 
every  shop  of  handicraft,  ever}^  humblest  toil,  even 
down  to  the  knife-grinder's  lathe  and  fisherman's  bar- 
row, to  feel  its  quickening  touch  of  intelligence,  the 
classic  culture  will  only  be  as  much  more  largely 
sought,  and  its  courses  as  much  more  frequented,  as 
the  general  underlift  of  mind  is  higher  than  it  was 
before.  And  then  as  now,  and  now  as  then,  Mater 
Alma  esto  perpetua. 

But  misgi^-ings  will  be  felt  as  regards  still  another 
department  of  life ;  viz.,  that  of  morals  and  religion. 

And  first  of  all,  many  alarmists  will  apprehend  the 
incoming  here  of  a  new  age  of  materialism.  What, 
in  fact,  are  we  preparing  here,  they  will  ask,  but  to 
have  the  new  age  educated  into  materialism  as  com- 
pletely as  possible  ?  As  if  the  getting  a  science  of 
matter  were  a  coming  under  matter,  and  not  the 
getting  up  of  matter  into  mind,  where  it  shall  reveal 
its  ideas  and  laws  and  prove  itself  a  thought-born 
creature.  True,  there  is  a  certain  looking  here,  in 
these  proposed  studies,  to  matter,  and  that  with  more 
or  less  expectation.  But  if  living  in  such  expectation 
is  the  same  thing  as  being  materialized,  it  ought  to 
have  been  fatally  done  a  long  time  ago.  What  is  mat- 
ter for  but  to  be  used  in  ways  of  advantage  ?  Do  we 
not  live  in  it  ?  Are  we  not  fastened  to  it  as  we  are 
to  our  bodies,  nay  to  our  heads  and  faces  ?   And  what 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION,  61 

has  poor,  pious  agriculture  been  looking  to,  and  dig- 
ging in,  from  the  first  day  till  now?  And  what  is 
land  itself, — the  vast  land-wealth,  outmeasuring  all 
other  properties  together, — but  a  property  in  matter  ? 
What,  in  short,  by  the  sentence  of  nature,  do  we  use, 
occupy,  wear,  spend  our  life  in,  get  our  nutriment 
from,  and  bow  down  ourselves  upon,  but  the  matter- 
world  we  are  put  here  to  inhabit  ?  Nay,  we  are  here 
in  matter  too,  for  religion's  sake ;  only  never  to  be 
materialized  by  it,  till  we  are  buried  and  dissolved 
in  it. 

See  again,  distinctly, what  high  furniture  of  mind 
and  spirit  is  coming  up  out  of  these  material  things. 
For  what  are  words  in  their  first  stage,  but  names  of 
material  images,  whether  acts  or  objects,  that  meet 
us  in  the  senses  ?  Dropping  thus  our  very  thoughts 
into  matter  to  be  named,  are  we  not  going  to  be 
fatally  sunk  in  it  ?  So  it  would  seem.  No !  for  look 
again,  and  we  shall  see  that  the  matter-born  words 
have  all  a  second  sense  related  to  mind,  a  power  of 
expression  by  figure  that  makes  them  God-given  sym- 
bols of  thought  and  spirit  and  all  the  invisible  things 
of  invisible  worlds.  So  forthwith  we  shoot  them  up 
into  a  higher  tier  of  meanings  for  all  mind-work,  all 
truth  and  religion.  The  underpinning  thus  of  the 
general  fabric  of  words  is  matter,  but  it  culminates 
airily  in  pinnacles  of  meaning  that  are  the  more 
grandly  spiritual  for  the  solid  sense-work  under  them. 

And  what,  again,  do  we  now  see  as  science  advances, 
but  that,  as  our  single  words  were  significant  origi- 


62  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

nally,  because  the  stamps  of  God's  intelligence  were 
in  their  faces,  so  they  are  now  going  to  be  tlireaded 
and  strung  in  the  unity  of  reason,  as  the  things  them- 
selves are  threaded  and  strung  by  the  laws  going 
through  them.  Thus  it  would  almost  make  up,  even 
now,  a  new  dictionary,  to  simply  gather  up  the  law- 
words  of  science  that  are  getting  a  higher  second 
sense  as  words  of  thought  and  spirit,  drawn  towards 
unity  by  the  analogies  of  their  own  system ;  gravita- 
tion, for  example,  orbit,  focus,  centripetal  and  centri- 
fugal, apogee  and  perigee,  reflection  and  refraction, 
magnetic,  electric,  photographic,  telegraphic,  conduc- 
tion, bipolar  affinity,  latent  heat,  static  equilibrium, 
system,  order,  kosmos  and  a  full  thousand  others  used 
for  the  expression  of  supernatural  ideas.  Thus  we 
speak  of  the  bipolarities  of  subjects ;  or  of  the  neu- 
tral salts  of  feeling,  quiet  as  nitre  till  the  fires  of 
provocation  touch  them  ;  or  of  geologic  layers  in  civ- 
ilization ;  or  of  souls  that  are  exogenous  or  endoge- 
nous in  their  growth,  blooming  only  in  their  own 
order.  Now  by  all  such  words  of  law  we  are  unify- 
ing more  or  less  perceptibly  the  ideas  and  thoughts  of 
mind  they  are  used  to  express,  approximating  always 
that  complete  whole  of  intelligence  in  which  they  will 
be  configured  to,  and  accurately  tempered  by,  each 
other.  And  what  forbids  that  we  thus  form,  at  last, 
by  the  simple  growth  of  language  itself,  untrammeled 
by  logic  and  speculative  art,  a  complete  mind-system, 
answering  to  the  system  discovered  in  things  ?  Is  this 
the  materializing  of  man,  or  is  it  rather  the  spiritual- 
izing of  the  world  ? 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  ^63 

Dismissing  this, we  pass  on  to  another  objection, 
viz.,  that  in  making  so  much  of  things  and  their 
scientific  uses,  we  shall  fall  into  a  remorseless  and 
dry  rationalism,  and  even  lose  out  the  faculty  of  im- 
ao'ination  itself.  We  shall  educate  ourselves  out  of 
poetry,  out  of  all  finest  capacities  of  literature,  and 
even  out  of  religion.  No,  the  matters  of  science  are 
no  dry  bodiment  of  fact  and  speculative  reason,  such 
as  the  objection  supposes.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  school- 
ing for  the  imagination  at  all  Comparable,  as  regards 
richness  and  stimulating  efficacy,  save  in  religion  it- 
self. I  once  heard  a  commencement  orator  dealing- 
heavy  blows  on  the  stupid  and  stupefying  nurture 
given  to  children  in  books  of  natural  history,  and 
saying,  in  what  seemed  to  him  a  brilliant  sally : 
''Teach  your  children  fairies  rather,  hobgoblins,  sprites, 
good-fellows,  put  them  in  the  Arabian  Nights  and 
bring  them  up  no  more  among  the  beasts."  That  he 
thought  would  raise  the  true  poetry  in  them,  and  pre- 
pare them  even  to  believe  in  miracles  !  Whereas,  if 
I  am  right,  there  is  a  far  higher  wonder-working  and 
a  sweeter  magic  in  the  spells  of  the  life-power,  grow- 
ing matter  into  beasts  and  trees,  and  birds  and 
flowers,  out  of  germs  so  little  like  them,  than  in  all 
the  pretty  nonsense  of  such  fables ;  and  that  with 
the  advantage  that  these  more  than  romantic  wonders 
are  yet  literally  true.  There  is,  in  fact,  more  poetry 
and  more  to  quicken  the  imagination,  more  mystery 
and  rhythm  and  soul-quickening  inspiration  in  the 
magic  feats  of  organic  chemistry,  imposing  its  own 


64  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

will  on  matter,  as  no  human  chemist  can, — more,  I 
say,  in  this  one  department  of  science,  than  in  all  the 
books  of  Homer  together.  There  is  no  hymn  for  all 
the  gods  that  has  the  music  of  this.  And  so  it  is  just 
now  beginning  to  appear  in  our  later  {)oets,  that  the 
deepest  thoughts  and  freshest  beauty  and  grandest 
inspiration  of  song  are  contributions,  at  bottom,  from 
the  revelations  of  science.  And  if  it  be  science  to 
think  the  thoughts  of  God  and  set  them  chiming  in 
productive  work,  what  else  should  be  the  result  ? 

But  we  are  proposing  here  to  give  a  much  larger 
place  to  science,  relatively  speaking,  in  the  education 
of  the  coming  age ;  and  what  is  this,  as  things  are 
looking  now,  some  will  ask,  but  to  put  the  coming 
age  at  school  in  ways  of  unbelief  ?  It  is  much  to  be 
regretted,  certainly,  if  science  is  making  issue  with 
religion  more  frequently  than  it  was ;  but  for  one,  I 
have  no  least  concern  for  the  result.  If  there  is  no 
truth  in  religion,  it  must  die  of  course,  and  may  as 
well  die  soon.  If  there  is  truth  in  it,  there  is  most 
assuredly  no  other  truth  in  conflict  with  it.  Besides, 
if  there  is  any  possibility  of  science  in  things,  there 
is,  by  supposition,  mind  in  things  ;  for  science  is  but 
intelligence  discovering  intelligence,  mind  rethinking 
the  thoughts  of  mind  everywhere  present.  To  be 
thinkable  they  must  have  ends,  uses,  adaptations, 
geometries  in  their  masses,  arithmetic  in  their  atoms, 
proportions,  orbits,  laws,  otherwise  they  are  but  chro- 
nonhotonthologos^  and  there  is  no  science  of  that.  But 
since  they  are  threaded  with  mentality  all  through, 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  65 

and  science  is  but  finding  the  threads,  since  they  are 
covered  all  over  with  stamps  of  intelligence,  which 
means  divine  intelligence  or  nothing,  it  may  as  well 
be  expected  that  the  tides  of  the  sea,  swept  out  with 
a  broom,  will  not  return,  as  that  religion  will  not,  when 
thrust  away  by  science.  Let  there  be  no  feeble  depre- 
cation then  of  conflict  or  collision  between  science 
and  religion,  such  as  we  sometimes  hear  on  both 
sides.  The  braver  way  is  better  and  more  rational. 
No,  let  come  what  must :  as  long  as  there  is  matter  of 
conflict,  let  conflict  be :  let  the  two  grapple  in  the 
close  interlock  and  wrestle  together ;  and  let  the  two 
get  just  what  belongs  to  them  as  the  battle  edge 
divides  to  each. 

Meantime  I  take  a  most  particular  pleasure  in  the 
advocacy  of  a  way  of  education  specially  devoted  to 
the  applications  of  science,  because  of  the  conviction  I 
feel,  that  our  schools  of  application  will  be  the  best 
and  most  certain  rectifiers  possible  of  the  unbelieving 
tendencies  of  science  itself.  The  real  fact  is  that  our 
unbelievers  and  deniers  in  science  prove  their  infirmity 
sometimes  in  the  loss  of  their  equilibrium.  They  are 
dazzled  by  their  own  splendors,  just  about  to  be,  if  not 
already,  won.  So  much  authority  so  long  deferred 
to  oversets  the  balance  of  their  brain :  and  they  think 
they  can  settle  anything  by  their  pronouncement,  as 
other  tyrants  do,  who  have  outgrown  their  measures  ; 
pitching  in  their  authority  thus  on  the  great  religious 
questions  of  ontology,  soul-force,  immateriality  of 
spirit,  freedom  of  the  will,  and  the  like,  where  theolo- 
5 


QQ  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

gians  and  metaphysicians  have  been  toiling  thousands 
of  years ;  having  no  suspicion  that  they  are  become 
theologians  and  metaphysicians  themselves,  without 
even  knowing  the  alphabet  of  the  subjects.  They  get 
lifted  also  into  moods  of  flightiness  by  their  premature 
soaring  on  the  wings  of  hypothesis,  or  the  unripe 
guesses  they  propound  as  facts.  As  they  multiply  in 
numbers,  they  become  hurried  by  their  races  with  each 
other,  thrusting  out  hypotheses  that  are  occurrent,  not 
established.  In  their  zeal  for  precedence  they  quite 
forestall  the  honors  it  brings,  setting  up  their  flag  on 
islands  a  little  before  they  are  discovered.  Living 
thus  in  a  kind  of  fire-work  element,  where  opinions, 
conjectures,  guesses,  and  brilliant  hypotheses  are 
bursting  into  flame  all  around  the  sky,  the  premature 
births  of  their  discovery  make  more  noise  than  the 
full-born  truths. 

Saying  nothing,  in  this  view,  of  the  shallow  sensa- 
tion-mongers who  are  bolting  out  their  discoveries  yet 
unborn,  and  storming  them  in  our  faces  just  because 
they  shake  the  faith  of  religion,  let  it  waken  no  sur- 
prise if  I  say  that  of  all  the  fifty  or  more  points,  where 
science  is  supposed  to  be  most  distinctly  pitted  against 
religion,  I  know  not  one  where  the  matter  advanced 
has  come  to  be  any  matter  of  science  at  all,  excepting 
only  two  or  three  where  the  constructions  of  religion 
have  been  easil}^  accommodated  already  to  the  ad- 
mitted discoveries.  And  it  is  exactly  here,  in  this 
corrective  sobering  of  hypotheses,  that  applied  science, 
largely  endeavored  in  our  schools,  will  be  adding  just 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  6T 

the  counterweights  demanded.  Applied  science  must 
be  science,  for  anything  in  the  nature  of  hypothesis, 
not  verified  by  discovery,  is  but  chaff  as  regards  ap- 
plications and  uses.  There  is  no  romancing  or  vapor- 
ing here.  Conjectures,  unripe  guesses,  cannot  turn  a 
mill,  or  color  a  flower,  or  kindle  auroral  fires  about 
the  point  of  a  magnet.  Hydraulics  for  the  imagina- 
tion will  not  answer  for  water.  Geologic  theories,  if 
that  is  all,  will  do  no  good  work  in  the  mines.  Assays 
that  are  going  to  roast  gold  out  of  gunpowder  will 
probably  get  something  else.  Not  even  clairvoyant 
revelations  will  be  as  good  as  telegraphic  cables.  All 
teaching  here  is  held  within  the  sober  limits  of  dis- 
covery. What  instruction  is  going  to  apply  it  must 
first  solidly  know,  and  the  study  of  the  pupil  will  be 
to  find  what  is,  not  what  possibly  can  be.  The  whole 
training  here  is  practically  bent,  and  the  habit  created 
is  a  habit  of  respect  to  what  is  practically  established. 
And  from  that  kind  of  habit,  in  the  forward  operative 
men  of  the  future  age,  religion  will  have  nothing  to 
fear.  Or  if  it  be  said  that  such  limited  courses  of 
study,  in  the  schools  of  applied  science,  will  have  a 
peril  of  their  own,  gendering  a  conceit  the  more  mis- 
chievous because  of  its  limitations  ;  if  we  are  reminded 
that  a  ''  little  knowledge  is  a  dangerous  thing  ; "  it  is 
enough  to  reply  that  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  which 
is  not  come  to  knowledge  is  a  great  deal  more  dan- 
gerous. A  grand  practical  sobriety  will  get  footing  in 
this  manner,  and  when  it  comes  to  rule  in  all  the  great 
affairs  of  industry  and  creative  production,  it  will  have 


68  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

weight  and  body  enough  to  sober  the  over-zealous 
flights  of  the  discoverers.  Assuming  to  be  more  sci- 
entific, they  will  begin  to  think  they  are  less  so ;  and 
it  will  be  strange,  if  the  men  of  applied  science  do 
not  often  equal  them  in  the  matter  of  discovery  itself. 
For  what  can  better  prepare  discovery  than  a  fixed 
respect  to  facts,  and  a  stringent  attention  to  their 
uses  ?  On  this  ground  we  are  even  to  expect,  not 
better  inventions  only  and  uses,  but  a  more  vigorous 
growth  in  science  itself.  And  withal  it  will  add  as 
much  vigor  to  religion  as  it  does  to  common  life  and. 
science. 

On  the  whole,  I  know  not  anything  in  this  training 
of  practical  science  that  can  well  discourage  faith  in 
its  moral  and  religious  tendencies,  unless  it  be,  where 
that  is  true,  that  it  proposes  no  moral  supervision  of 
the  pupils,  and  no  religious  observances.  And  what, 
in  this  view,  can  afford  a  better  compensation,  or 
more  effectually  meet  a  most  real  want  of  the  age 
itself,  than  to  have  a  professorship  added  on  the  ap- 
plications of  science  to  religion  ?  It  must  be  filled  by 
a  man  capable  of  such  high  themes,  and  why  not  have 
him  lecture  on  them  every  Sunday,  connecting  with 
his  lecture  some  fit  observance  of  worship,  and  a  free 
questioning  or  debate  of  all  the  students  and  profes- 
sors on  all  the  questions  put  in  issue  ?  AVhat  is  the 
world  now  waiting  for,  but  just  this  scientific  confi- 
dence in  religion,  and  this  always  truth-confirming, 
liquidating  power  ? 

I  have  only  to  add  now,  in  closing,  a  few  words 


THE    NEW    EDUCATION.  69 

concerning  the  advantages  added  to  character,  in  its 
most   ennobled   forms,  by  the  proposed   training  in 
practical  science.     The  very  thing  studied  is  to  bring 
all  nature  under  power,  and  by  that  means  to  double, 
or  quadruple,  or  even  to  twenty  fold  the  quantity  of 
being  in  the  men.     Hitherto  we  have  had  small  men 
living  in  small  character,  partly  because  they  have 
had  no  grand  dominion  of  property  in  the  world,  such 
as  belongs  to  them.     But  when  they  get  all  causes 
under,  they  will  have  a  towering  property  in  their 
functions,  and  may  have  a  like  towering  stature  in 
their  virtues.     For  it  happens  that  what  is  thus  a 
training  into  power  is  a  training  also  into  order,  the 
order  of  law  and  of  things  in  law.     Order  is  next  thing 
to  principle ;  and  scientific  order,  by  a  hidden  law  of 
sympathy,  favors  all  virtue  :  character,  in  fact,  is  only 
order  in  mind.     And  again,  order  in  mind  will  link 
itself  with  a  perpetual  assent  to  law,  breeding  rever- 
ence to  all  most  fixed  convictions  of  right,  even  as  to 
the  fixed  laws  applied  by  science  itself.     The  classics 
are  controvertible  and  variable  in  whatever  stamp  is 
gotten  from  them,  because  they  are  human ;  and  we 
may   therefore   well    enough   admit  that  a  classical 
training  can  work  finer  tastes  and  finishes,  a  little 
way  off  from  the  severities  of  principle,  producing  a 
freer  abandon  and  a  more  gracefully  captivating,  alto- 
gether human  play ;  but  for  just  that  reason  they  can 
never  endow  a  true  great  soul  in  the  noblest  quanti- 
ties of  power,  and  the  inflexible  majesty  of  right. 
Only  science  and  the  scientific  order  can  set  merit 


70  THE    NEW    EDUCATION. 

first,  and  make  ornament  the  garnish  of  merit ;  only 
these  can  truly  enthrone  the  sober  laws  of  use,  turning 
politics  into  statesmanship,  ruling  out  cabal  and  fac- 
tion, rebuilding  society  thus  in  terms  of  order  and 
truth,  sanctified  by  justice  and  crowned  by  religion. 
This,  if  I  am  right,  is  character ;  and  having  thus  all 
works  and  workmen  headed  by  the  supervision  of 
character,  a  new  great  age  of  character  only  can  re- 
sult; a  consummation  that  may  fitly  gladden  the 
expectant  eyes  of  all  good  men. 


III. 

COMMON  SCHOOLS.* 


Lev.  24:22.  Ye  shall  have  one  manner  of  law,  as  well  for  the 
stranger,  as  for  one  of  your  own  country:  for  I  am  the  Lord 
your  God. 

It  is  mj  very  uncommon  privilege  and  pleasure  to 
speak  to  you,  for  once,  from  a  text  already  fulfilled, 
and  more  than  fulfilled,  in  the  observance.  For  we, 
as  a  people  or  nation,  have  not  only  abstained  from 
passing  laws  that  are  unequal,  or  hard  upon  strangers, 
which  is  what  the  rule  of  the  text  forbids,  but  we 
have  invited  them  to  become  fellow-citizens  with  us 
in  our  privileges,  and  bestowed  upon  them  all  the 
rights  and  immunities  of  citizens.  We  have  said  to 
the  strangers  from  Germany,  France,  Switzerland, 
Norway,  Ireland,  and  indeed  of  every  land  :  "  Come 
and  be  Americans  with  us,  you  and  your  children ; 
and  whatsoever  right  or  benefit  we  have,  in  our  free 
institutions  and  our  vast  and  fertile  domain,  shall  be 
yours. '^ 

Thus   invited,  thus  admitted  to  an  equal   footing 

*  Delivered  in  the  Korth  Church,  Hartford,  as  a  Fast  Day  Dis- 
course, March  25,  1853. 


72  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

with  us,  they  are  not  content,  but  are  just  now  return- 
ing our  generosity  by  insisting  that  we  must  excuse 
them  and  their  children  from  being  wholly  and 
properly  American.  They  will  not  have  one  law  for 
us  and  for  themselves,  but  they  demand  immunities 
that  are  peculiar  to  themselves,  and  before  unheard 
of  by  us ;  or  else  that  we  wholly  give  up  institutions 
for  their  sake  that  are  the  dearest  privileges  of  our 
birthright.  They  accept  the  common  rights  of  the 
law,  the  common  powers  of  voting,  the  common  terms 
of  property,  a  common  privilege  in  the  new  lands  and 
the  mines  of  gold,  but  when  they  come  to  the  matter 
of  common  schools,  they  will  not  be  common  with  us 
there ;  they  require  of  us,  instead,  either  to  give  up 
our  common  schools,  or  else,  which  in  fact  amounts 
to  the  same  thing,  to  hand  over  their  proportion  of 
the  public  money  and  let  them  use  it  for  such  kind 
of  schools,  as  they  happen  to  like  best ;  ecclesiastical 
schools,  whether  German,  French,  or  Irish ;  any  kind 
of  schools  but  such  as  are  American  and  will  make 
Americans  of  their  children. 

It  has  been  clear  for  some  years  past,  from  the 
demonstrations  of  our  Catholic  clergy  and  their  peo- 
ple, but  particularly  of  the  clergy,  that  they  were 
preparing  for  an  assault  upon  the  common  school 
system,  hitherto  in  so  great  favor  with  our  country- 
men ;  complaining,  first,  of  the  Bible  as  a  sectarian 
book  in  the  schools,  and  then,  as  their  complaints 
have  begun  to  be  accommodated  by  modifications  that 
amount  to  a  discontinuance,  more  or  less  complete,  of 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  73 

religious  instruction  itself,  of  our  ''  godless  scheme  of 
education  ; "  to  which  (as  godless  only  as  they  have 
required  it  to  be,)  they  say  they  cannot  surrender 
their  children  without  a  virtual  sacrifice  of  all  relig- 
ion. Growing  more  hopeful  of  their  ability,  by  the 
heavy  vote  they  can  wield,  to  turn  the  scale  of  an 
election  one  way  or  the  other  between  opposing  par- 
ties, and  counting  on  the  sway  they  can  thus  exert 
over  the  popular  leaders  and  candidates,  they  have 
lately  attempted  a  revolution  of  the  school  system  of 
Michigan,  and  are  now  memorializing  the  legislatures 
of  Pennsylvania  and  Ohio,  and  urging  it  on  the  peo- 
ple of  these  States  to  allow  a  change  or  modification 
of  theirs  that  amounts  to  a  real  discontinuance ;  viz., 
to  make  a  distribution  of  the  public  school  money  to 
all  existing  schools,  of  whatever  description,  accord- 
ing to  the  number  of  their  scholars  ;  and  the  moment 
this  is  done,  plainly  nothing  will  be  left  of  the  com- 
mon school  system  but  a  common  fund,  gathered  by 
a  common  tax  on  property,  to  support  private  schools. 
Evidently  the  time  has  now  come,  and  the  issue  of 
life  or  death  to  common  schools  is  joined  for  trial. 
The  ground  is  taken,  the  flag  is  raised, and  there  is  to 
be  no  cessation  till  the  question  is  forever  decided 
whether  we  are  to  have  common  schools  in  our  coun- 
try or  not.  And  accordingly,  it  is  time  for  us  all, 
citizens,  public  men,  and  Christians,  to  be  finding  the 
ground  on  which  we  expect  and  may  be  able  to  stand. 
In  one  view  the  question  is  wholly  a  religious  ques- 
tion ;  in  another  it  is  more  immediately  a  civil  or 


74  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

political  question.  And  yet  the  lines  cross  each  other 
in  so  many  ways  that  any  proper  discussion  of  the 
topic  must  cover  both  aspects  or  departments,  tlie 
vreligious  and  the  political.  I  take  up  the  question  at 
this  early  period,  before  it  has  become,  in  any  sense, 
a  party  question,  that  I  may  have  the  advantage  of 
greater  freedom,  and  that  I  may  suffer  no  imputation 
of  a  party  bias  to  detain  me  from  saying  anything 
which  pertains  to  a  complete  view  of  tlie  subject. 

As  this  day  of  fasting  is  itself  a  civil  appointment, 
I  have  always  made  it  a  point  to  occupy  the  day,  in 
part,  with  some  subject  that  pertains  to  the  public 
duties  and  religious  concerns  of  the  State  or  nation. 
I  propose,  therefore,  now  to  anticipate,  as  it  were,  the 
pressure  of  this  great  subject,  and  discharge  myself, 
once  for  all,  of  my  whole  duty  concerning  it ;  and  I 
hope  to  speak  of  it  under  that  sense  of  responsibility, 
as  well  as  in  that  freedom  from  prejudice,  which  one 
of  the  greatest  and  most  serious  of  all  American  sub- 
jects requires.  I  wish  I  might  also  speak  in  a  manner 
to  exclude  any  narrow  and  partial  or  sectarian  views 
of  it,  such  as  time  and  the  further  consideration  of 
years  might  induce  a  wish  to  qualify  or  amend. 

I  will  now  undertake  to  say  that  our  Catholic  friends 
have,  in  no  case,  any  just  reason  for  uneasiness  or 
complaint.  A  great  many  persons  and  even  com- 
munities will  very  naturally  act,  for  a  time,  as  power 
is  able  to  act,  and  will  rather  take  counsel  of  their 
prejudices  than  of  reason,  or  of  the  great  principles 
that  underlie  our  American  institutions.     Considera- 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  75 

tion,  as  a  rectifying  power,  is  often  tardy  in  its  com- 
ing, and  of  course  there  will  be  something  unrecti- 
fied,  for  so  long  a  time,  in  the  matter  that  waits  for 
its  arrival. 

Meantime  the  subject  itself  is  one  of  some  inherent 
difficulty,  and  cannot  be  expected  to  settle  itself  upon 
its  right  foundation,  without  some  delay  or  some  agi- 
tation, more  or  less  protracted,  of  its  opposing  inter- 
ests and  reasons.  We  began  our  history  in  all  but 
the  single  colony  of  Baltimore,  as  Protestant  com- 
munities ;  and  in  those  especially  of  New  England, 
we  have  had  the  common  school  as  a  fundamental 
institution  from  the  first, — in  our  view  a  Protestant 
institution, — associated  with  all  our  religious  con- 
victions, opinions,  and  the  public  sentiment  of  our 
Protestant  society.  We  are  still,  as  Americans,  a 
Protestant  people,  and  many  are  entirely  ignorant  as 
yet  of  the  fact  that  we  are  not  still  Protestant  States 
also,  as  at  the  first ;  Protestant,  that  is,  in  our  civil 
order  and  the  political  fabric  of  our  government.  And 
yet  we  very  plainly  are  not.  We  have  made  a  great 
transition ;  made  it  silently  and  imperceptibly,  and 
scarcely  know  as  yet  that  it  is  made.  Occupied 
wholly  with  a  historic  view  of  the  case,  considering 
how  the  country  and  its  institutions  are  historically 
speaking  ours  ;  the  liberality  and  kindness  we  have 
shown  to  those  who  have  come  more  recently  to  join 
us,  and  are  even  now  heard  speaking  in  a  foreign 
accent  among  us ;  the  asylum  we  have  generously 
opened  for  them  and  their  children;   the  immense 


76  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

political  trust  we  have  committed  to  them,  in  setting 
them  on  a  common  footing,  as  voters,  with  ourselves ; 
and  that  now  we  offer  to  give  a  free  education  to  their 
children,  at  the  public  expense,  or  by  a  tax  on  all  the 
property  of  the  state, — considering  all  this,  and  that 
we  and  our  fathers  are  Protestants,  it  seems  to  be 
quite  natural  and  right,  or  even  a  matter  of  course, 
that  our  common  schools  should  remain  Protestant 
and  retain  their  ancient  footing  undisturbed. 

But  we  shall  find,  on  a  second  consideration,  that 
we  have  really  agreed  for  something  different,  and 
that  now  we  have  none  to  complain  of  but  ourselves, 
if  we  have  engaged  for  more  than  it  is  altogether 
pleasant  to  yield.  Our  engagement,  in  the  large  view 
of  it,  is  to  make  the  state  or  political  order  a  plat- 
form of  equal  right  to  all  sects  and  denominations  of 
Christians.  We  have  slid  off,  imperceptibly,  from  the 
old  Puritan,  upon  an  American  basis,  and  have  under- 
taken to  inaugurate  a  form  of  political  order  that 
holds  no  formal  church  connection.  The  properly 
Puritan  common  school  is  already  quite  gone  by ;  the 
intermixture  of  Methodists,  Quakers,  Unitarians,  Epis- 
copalians, and  diverse  other  names  of  Christians 
called  Protestants,  has  burst  the  capsule  of  Puritan- 
ism, and  as  far  as  the  schools  are  concerned  it  is 
quite  passed  away ;  even  the  Westminster  catechism  is 
gone  by,  to  be  taught  in  the  schools  no  more.  In 
precisely  the  same  manner,  have  we  undertaken  also 
to  loosen  the  bonds  of  Protestantism  in  the  schools, 
when  the  time  demanding  it  arrives.     To  this  we  are 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  77 

mortgaged  by  our  great  American  doctrine  itself,  and 
there  is  no  way  to  escape  the  obligation  but  to  renounce 
the  doctrine,  and  resume,  if  we  can,  the  forms  and 
lost  prerogatives  of  a  state  religion. 

But  there  is  one  thing,  and  a  very  great  thing,  that 
we  have  not  lost,  nor  agreed  to  yield;  viz.,  Common 
Schools.  Here  we  may  take  our  stand,  and  upon  this 
we  may  insist  as  being  a  great  American  institution ; 
one  that  has  its  beginnings  with  our  history  itself ; 
one  that  is  inseparably  joined  to  the  fortunes  of  the 
republic ;  and  one  that  can  never  wax  old,  or  be  dis- 
continued in  its  rights  and  reasons,  till  the  pillars  of 
the  state  are  themselves  cloven  down  forever.  We 
cannot  have  Puritan  common  schools ;  these  are  gone 
already.  We  cannot  have  Protestant  common  schools, 
or  those  which  are  distinctively  so.  But  we  can  have 
common  schools,  and  these  we  must  agree  to  have 
and  maintain  till  the  last  or  latest  day  of  our  liber- 
ties. These  are  American,  as  our  liberties  themselves 
are  American ;  and  whoever  requires  of  us,  whether 
directly  or  by  implication,  to  give  them  up,  requires 
what  is  more  than  our  bond  promises,  and  what  is,  in 
fact,  a  real  affront  to  our  name  and  birthright  as  a 
people. 

I  mean,  of  course,  by  common  schools,.when  I  thus 
speak,  schools  for  the  children  of  all  classes,  sects, 
and  denominations  of  the  people ;  so  far  perfected  in 
their  range  of  culture  and  mental  and  moral  disci- 
pline, that  it  shall  be  the  interest  of  all  to  attend,  as 
being  the  best  schools  which  can  be  found ;  clear  too, 


T8  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

of  any  sach  objections  as  may  furnish  a  just  ground 
of  offense  to  the  conscience  or  the  religious  scruples 
of  any  Christian  body  of  our  people.  I  mean,  too, 
schools  that  are  established  by  the  public  law  of  the 
state,  supported  at  the  public  expense,  organized  and 
superintended  by  public  authority.  Of  course  it  is 
implied  that  the  schools  shall  be  under  laws  that  are 
general,  in  the  same  way  as  the  laws  of  roads,  records, 
and  military  service ;  that  no  distribution  shall  be 
made,  in  a  way  of  exception,  to  schools  that  are  pri- 
vate, ecclesiastical  or  parochial;  that  whatever  ac- 
commodations are  made  to  different  forms  of  religion, 
shall  be  so  made  as  to  be  equally  available  to  all ;  that 
the  right  of  separate  religious  instruction,  the  super- 
vision, the  choice  of  teachers,  the  selection  of  books, 
shall  be  provided  for  under  fixed  conditions,  and  so  as 
to  maintain  the  fixed  rule  of  majorities,  in  all  ques- 
tions left  for  the  decision  of  districts.  The  schools, 
in  other  words,  shall  be  common,  in  just  the  same 
sense  that  all  the  laws  are  common,  so  that  the  ex- 
perience of  families  and  of  children  under  them  shall 
be  an  experience  of  the  great  republican  rule  of 
majorities;  an  exercise  for  majorities  of  obedience  to 
fixed  statutes,  and  of  moderation  and  impartial  re- 
spect to  the  rights  and  feelings  of  minorities ;  an 
exercise  for  minorities  of  patience  and  of  loyal  as- 
sent to  the  will  of  majorities ;  a  schooling,  in  that 
manner,  which  begins  at  the  earliest  moment  possible, 
in  the  rules  of  American  law  and  the  duties  of  an 
American  citizen. 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  79 

And  this,  I  undertake  to  say,  is  the  institution 
which  we  are  not  for  any  reason  to  surrender,  but  to 
hold  fast  as  being  a  necessary  and  fixed  element  of 
the  public  order,  one  without  which  our  American 
laws  and  liberties  are  scarcely  American  longer ;  or, 
if  we  call  them  by  that  name,  have  no  ground  longer 
of  security  and  consolidated  public  unity. 

In  the  first  place,  it  will  be  found,  if  we  closely  in- 
spect our  institutions,  that  the  common  school  is,  in 
fact,  an  integral  part  of  the  civil  order.  It  is  no 
eleemosynary  institution,  erected  outside  of  the  state, 
but  is  itself  a  part  of  the  public  law,  as  truly  so  as 
the  legislatures  and  judicial  courts.  The  school- 
houses  are  a  public  property,  the  district  committees 
are  civil  officers,  the  teachers  are  as  truly  function- 
aries of  the  law  as  the  constables,  prison-keepers,  in- 
spectors, and  coroners.  We  perceive  then,  if  we 
understand  the  question  rightly,  that  an  application 
against  common  schools,  is  so  far  an  application  for 
the  dismemberment  and  reorganization  of  the  civil 
order  of  the  state.  Certain  religionists  appear,  in 
the  name  of  religion,  demanding  that  the  state  shall 
be  otherwise  constructed.  Or  if  it  be  said  that  they 
do  not  ask  for  the  discontinuance  of  the  common 
schools,  but  only  to  have  a  part  of  the  funds  bestow^ed 
upon  their  ecclesiastical  schools,  the  case  is  not  mended 
but  rather  made  worse  by  the  qualification  ;  for  in 
that  view  they  are  asking  that  a  part  of  the  funds 
which  belong  to  the  civil  organization  shall  be  paid 


80  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

over  to  their  religion,  or  to  the  im^jerium  in  imperio 
which  their  religion  so  far  substitutes  for  the  civil  order. 
It  is  as  if  they  were  to  ask  that  the  health-wardens 
should  so  far  be  substituted  by  their  church-wardens, 
or  the  coroner's  inquest  by  their  confessional,  and 
that  the  state,  acknowledging  their  right  to  the  sub- 
stitution demanded,  should  fee  the  church-wardens 
and  confessors  in  their  behalf.  If  an  application  that 
infringes  on  the  civil  polity  of  our  States,  in  a  man- 
ner so  odious,  is  to  be 'heard,  the  civil  order  may  as 
well  be  disbanded,  and  the  people  given  over  to  their 
ecclesiastics,  to  be  ruled  by  them  in  as  many  clans  of 
religion  as  they  see  fit  to  make.  Are  we  ready,  as 
Americans,  to  yield  our  institutions  up  in  this  man- 
ner, or  to  make  them  paymasters  to  a  sect  who  will 
so  far  dismember  their  integrity  ? 

This  great  institution  too,  of  common  schools,  is 
not  only  a  part  of  the  state,  but  is  imperiously  wanted 
as  such,  for  the  common  training  of  so  many  classes 
and  conditions  of  people.  There  needs  to  be  some 
place  where,  in  early  childhood,  they  may  be  brought 
together  and  made  acquainted  with  each  other ;  thus 
to  wear  away  the  sense  of  distance,  otherwise  certain 
to  become  an  established  animosity  of  orders ;  to 
form  friendships ;  to  be  exercised  together  on  a  com- 
mon footing  of  ingenuous  rivalry  ;  the  children  of  the 
rich  to  feel  the  power  and  do  honor  to  the  struggles 
of  merit  in  the  lowly,  when  it  rises  above  them ;  the 
children  of  the  poor  to  learn  the  force  of  merit  and 
feel  the  benign  encouragement  yielded  by  its  blame- 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  81 

less  victories.  Indeed,  no  cliild  can  be  said  to  be  well- 
trained,  especially  no  male  child,  who  has  not  met  the 
people  as  they  are,  above  him  or  below,  in  the  seat- 
ings,  plays,  and  studies  of  the  common  school.  With- 
out this  he  can  never  be  a  fully  qualified  citizen,  or 
prepared  to  act  his  part  wisely  as  a  citizen.  Confined 
to  a  select  school,  where  only  the  children  of  wealth 
and  distinction  are  gathered,  he  will  not  know 
the  merit  there  is  in  the  real  virtues  .of  the  poor, 
or  the  power  that  slumbers  in  their  talent.  He 
will  take  his  better  dress  as  a  token  of  his  better 
quality,  look  down  upon  the  children  of  the  lowly 
with  an  educated  contempt,  prepare  to  take  on  lofty 
airs  of  confidence  and  presumption  afterward  ;  finally, 
to  make  the  discovery  when  it  is  too  late,  that  poverty 
has  been  the  sturdy  nurse  of  talent  in  some  unhonored 
youth  who  comes  up  to  affront  him  by  an  equal,  or 
mortify  and  crush  him  by  an  overmastering,  force.  So 
also  the  children  of  the  poor  and  lowly,  if  they  should 
be  privately  educated  in  some  inferior  degree  by  the 
honest  and  faithful  exertion  of  their  parents ;  secreted, 
as  it  were,  in  some  back  alley  or  obscure  corner  of  the 
town,  will  either  grow  up  in  a  fierce,  inbred  hatred  of 
the  wealthier  classes,  or  else  in  a  mind  cowed  by 
undue  modesty,  as  being  of  another  and  inferior 
quality,  unable  therefore  to  fight  the  great  battle  of 
life  hopefully,  and  counting  it  a  kind  of  presumption 
to  think  that  they  can  force  their  way  upward,  even  by 
merit  itself. 

Without  common  schools,  the  disadvantage  falls 
6 


82  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

both  ways  in  about  equal  degrees,  and  the  disadvan- 
tage that  accrues  to  the  state,  in  the  loss  of  so  much 
character  and  so  many  cross  ties  of  mutual  respect 
and  generous  appreciation,  the  embittering  so  fatally 
-of  all  outward  distinctions,  and  the  propagation  of  so 
many  misunderstandings,  righted  only  by  the  immense 
public  mischiefs  that  follow, — this,  I  say,  is  greater 
even  than  the  disadvantages  accruing  to  the  classes 
themselves  ;  a  disadvantage  that  weakens  immensely 
the  security  of  the  state  and  even  of  its  liberties. 
Indeed,  I  seriously  doubt  whether  any  system  of  popu- 
lar government  can  stand  the  shock,  for  any  length 
of  time,  of  that  fierce  animosity  that  is  certain  to  be 
gendered  where  the  children  are  trained  up  wholly  in 
their  classes,  and  never  brought  together  to  feel,  un- 
derstand, appreciate,  and  respect  each  other,  on  the 
common  footing  of  merit  and  of  native  talent,  in  a 
common  school.  Falling  back  thus  on  the  test  of 
merit  and  of  native  force,  at  an  early  period  of  life, 
moderates  immensely  their  valuation  of  mere  conven- 
tionalities and  of  the  accidents  of  fortune,  and  puts  them 
in  a  way  of  deference  that  is  genuine  as  well  as  neces- 
sary to  their  common  peace  in  the  state.  Common 
schools  are  nurseries  thus  of  a  free  republic ;  private 
schools,  of  factions,  cabals,  agrarian  laws,  and  contests 
of  force.  Therefore,  I  say,  we  must  have  common 
schools ;  they  are  American,  indispensable  to  our 
American  institutions,  and  must  not  be  yielded  for 
any  consideration  smaller  than  the  price  of  our  liber- 
ties.' 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  83 

Nor  is  it  only  in  this  manner  that  they  are  seen  to 
be  necessary.  The  same  argument  holds,  with  even 
greater  force,  when  applied  to  the  religious  distinct- 
ions of  our  country.  It  is  very  plain  that  we  cannot 
have  common  schools  for  the  purposes  above  named, 
if  we  make  distributions,  whether  of  schools  or  of 
funds,  under  sectarian  or  ecclesiastical  distinctions. 
At  that  moment  the  charm  and  very  much  of  the 
reality  of  common  schools  vanish.  Besides,  the  eccle- 
siastical distinctions  are  themselves  distinctions  also 
of  classes,  in  another  form,  and  such  too  as  are  much 
more  dangerous  than  any  distinctions  of  wealth.  Let 
the  Catholic  children,  for  example,  be  driven  out  of 
our  schools  by  unjust  trespasses  on  their  religion,  or 
be  withdrawn  for  mere  pretexts  that  have  no  founda- 
tion, and  just  there  commences  a  training  in  religious 
antipathies  bitter  as  the  grave.  Never  brought  close 
enough  to  know  each  other,  the  children,  subject  to 
the  great  well-known  principle  that  whatever  is  un- 
known is  magnified  by  the  darkness  it  is  under,  have 
all  their  prejudices  and  repugnances  magnified  a  thou- 
sand fold.  They  grow  up  in  the  conviction  that  there 
is  nothing  but  evil  in  each  other,  and  close  to  that  lies 
the  inference  that  they  are  right  in  doing  what  evil  to 
each  other  they  please.  I  complain  not  of  the  fact 
that  they  are  not  assimilated,  but  of  what  is  far  more 
dishonest  and  wicked,  that  they  are  not  allowed  to 
understand  each  other.  They  are  brought  up,  in  fact, 
for  misunderstanding ;  separated  that  they  mayanisun- 
derstand  each  other  ;  kept  apart,  walled  up  to  heaven 


84  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

in  the  inclosures  of  their  sects,  that  they  may  be  as 
ignorant  of  each  other,  as  inimical,  as  incapable  of 
love  and  cordial  good  citizenship  as  possible.  The 
arrangement  is  not  only  unchristian,  but  it  is  thor- 
oughly un-American,  hostile  at  every  point  to  our 
institutions  themselves.  No  bitterness  is  so  bitter,  no 
seed  of  faction  so  rank,  no  division  so  irreconcilable,, 
as  that  which  grows  out  of  religious  distinctions 
sharpened  to  religious  animosities,  and  softened  by  no 
terms  of  intercourse ;  the  more  bitter  when  it  begins 
with  childhood ;  and  yet  more  bitter  when  it  is  exas- 
perated also  by  distinctions  of  property  and  social  life 
that  correspond  ;  and  yet  more  bitter  still,  when  it  is 
aggravated  also  by  distinctions  of  stock  or  nation. 

In  this  latter  view,  the  withdrawing  of  our  Catholic 
children  from  the  common  schools,  unless  for  some 
real  breach  upon  their  religion,  and  the  distribution 
demanded  of  public  moneys  to  them  in  schools  apart 
by  themselves,  is  a  bitter  cruelty  to  the  children  and 
a  very  unjust  affront  to  our  institutions.  We  bid 
them  welcome  as  they  come,  and  open  to  their  free 
possession  all  the  rights  of  our  American  citizenship. 
They,  in  return,  forbid  their  children  to  be  Americans, 
pen  them  as  foreigners  to  keep  them  so,  and  train 
them  up  in  the  speech  of  Ashdod  among  us.  And 
then,  to  complete  the  affront,  they  come  to  our  legis- 
latures demanding  it  as  their  right  to  share  in  funds 
collected  by  a  taxing  of  the  whole  people,  and  to  have 
these  funds  applied  to  the  purpose  of  keeping  their 
children  from  being  Americans. 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  85 

Our  only  answer  to  such  demands  is :  "  No !  take 
your  place  with  us  in  our  common  schools,  and  con- 
sent to  be  Americans,  or  else  go  back  to  Turkey, 
where  Mohammedans,  Greeks,  Armenians,  Jews  are 
walled  up  by  the  laws  themselves,  forbidding  them 
ever  to  pass  over  or  to  change  their  superstitions ; 
there  to  take  your  chances  of  liberty,  such  as  a  people 
are  capable  of  when  they  are  trained  up,  as  regards 
each  other,  to  be  foreigners  for  all  coming  time  in 
blood  and  religion."  I  said, go  back  to  Turkey:  that 
is  unnecessary.  If  we  do  not  soon  prepare  a  state  of 
Turkish  order  and  felicity  here,  by  separating  and 
folding  our  children  thus,  in  the  stringent  limits  of 
religious  non-acquaintance  and  consequent  animosity, 
it  will  be  because  the  laws  of  human  nature  and  soci- 
ety have  failed. 

Besides,  there  are  other  consequences  of  such  a 
breach  upon  the  common  school  system,  implied  in 
yielding  this  demand,  which  are  not  to  be  suffered. 
A  very  great  part,  of  the  children,  thus  educated,  will 
have  very  inferior  advantages.  They  will  be  shut  up 
in  schools  that  do  not  teach  them  what,  as  Americans, 
they  most  of  all  need  to  know,  the  political  geography 
and  political  history  of  the  world,  the  rights  of  human- 
ity, the  struggles  by  which  those  rights  are  vindicated 
and  the  glorious  rewards  of  liberty  and  social  advance- 
ment that  follow.  They  will  be  instructed  mainly 
into  the  foreign  prejudices  and  superstitions  of  their 
fathers,  and  the  state,  which  proposes  to  be  clear  of 
all  sectarian  affinities  in  religion,  will  pay  the  bills ! 


86  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

It  will  also  be  demanded,  next,  that  the  state  sliall 
hold  the  purse  for  the  followers  of  Tom  Paine  and 
all  other  infidels,  discharging  the  bills  of  schools  where 
Paine's  Age  of  Reason,  or  the  Mormon  Bible,  or  Da- 
vis's Revelations  are  the  reading  books  of  the  children. 

The  old  school  Presbyterian  church  took  ground, 
six  years  ago,  in  their  General  Assembly,  at  the  crisis 
of  their  high  church  zeal,  against  common  and  in 
favor  of  parochial  schools.  Hitherto  their  agitation 
has  yielded  little  more  than  a  degree  of  discourage- 
ment and  disrespect  to  the  schools  of  their  country ; 
but  if  the  Catholics  prevail  in  their  attempt,  they  also 
will  be  forward  in  demanding  the  same  riglits,  upon 
the  same  grounds,  and  their  claim  also  must  be 
granted.  By  that  time  the  whole  system  of  common 
schools  is  fatally  shaken.  For  since  education  is 
thrown  thus  far  upon  the  care  of  individual  parents, 
still  another  result  is  certain  to  follow  in  close  prox- 
imity, viz.,  the  discontinuance  of  all  common  schools 
and  of  all  public  care  of  education  ;  and  then  we  shall 
have  large  masses  of  children  growing  up  in  neglect, 
with  no  school  at  all  provided  to  which  they  can  be 
sent ;  ignorant,  hopeless,  and  debased  creatures ; 
banditti  of  the  street ;  wild  men  of  anarchy,  waiting 
for  their  leaders  and  the  guerilla  practice  of  the 
mountains :  at  first  the  pest  of  society,  and  finally 
its  end  or  overthrow.  This  result  will  be  further 
expedited  by  the  fact  that  many  children,  now  in  our 
public  schools,  will  be  gathered  into  schools  of  an 
atheistic  or  half  pagan  character,  where  they  will  be 


com:rionschools.  87 

educated  in  a  contempt  of  all  order  and  decency,  to 
be  leaders  of  the  ignorance  and  brutality  supplied  by 
the  uneducated.  How  different  the  picture  from  that 
which  is  now  presented  by  our  beautiful  system  of 
common  schools, — every  child  provided  with  a  good 
school,  all  classes  and  conditions  brought  together  on 
an  equal  footing  of  respect  and  merit,  the  state  their 
foster-mother,  all  property  a  willing  and  glad  contrib- 
utor for  their  outfit  in  life  and  their  success  in  the 
ways  of  intelligence  and  virtue  ! 

Take  it  then  for  a  point  established,  that  common 
schools  are  to  remain  as  common  schools,  and  that 
these  are  to  be  maintained  by  the  state  as  carefully  as 
the  arsenals  and  armed  defenses  of  the  country  ;  these 
and  no  other.  Just  here,  then,  comes  the  difficult 
question,  what  are  we  to  do,  how  to  accommodate  the 
religious  distinctions  of  the  people,  so  as  to  make 
their  union  in  any  common  system  of  schools  possi- 
ble ?  How  the  Catholics,  in  particular,  are  to  be 
accommodated  in  their  religion,  in  those  societies 
and  districts  where  Protestants  are  the  majority ; 
how  Protestants,  where  Catholics  are  the  majority  ? 

The  question,  how  Pagans,^Mohammedans,  and 
Atheists  are  to  be  accommodated,  is  in  my  view  a 
different  question,  and  one,  I  think,  which  is  to  be 
answered  in  a  different  manner.  They  are  to  be 
tolerated  or  suffered,  but  in  no  case  to  be  assisted  or 
accommodated  by  acts  of  public  conformity.  I  can 
not  agree  to  the  sentiment  sometimes  advanced,  that 


88  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

we  are  not  a  Christian  nation  in  distinction  from  a 
Pagan,  Mohammedan,  or  Infidel.  Indeed  I  will  go 
further ;  assuming  the  fact  of  God's  existence,  I  will 
say  that  no  government  can  write  a  legitimate  enact- 
ment or  pass  a  valid  decree  of  separation  from  God. 
Still,  after  the  act  is  done,  God  exists.  God  is  the 
only  foundation  it  has  of  public  right  or  authority. 
The  state,  indeed,  is  a  fiction,  a  lie,  and  no  state,  save 
as  it  stands  in  him.  And  then  as  Christianity  is  only 
the  complete  revelation  of  God,  otherwise  only  par- 
tially revealed,  it  follows  that  the  state  cannot  be  less 
than  a  Christian  state,  cannot  any  more  disown  or 
throw  off  its  obligations  to  be  Christian  than  an  indi- 
vidual can.  Nor  in  fact  has  our  government  ever  at- 
tempted to  shake  off  Christianity,  but  has  always, 
from  the  first  day  till  now,  taken  the  attitude  and 
character  of  a  Christian  commonwealth ;  accepting 
the  Christian  Sabbath,  appointing  fasts  and  thanks- 
givings, employing  military  and  legislative  chaplains, 
and  acknowledging  God  by  manifold  other  tokens. 
Accordingly  our  schools  are,  to  the  same  extent,  and 
are  to  be.  Christian  schools.  This  is  the  American 
principle,  and  as  we  have  never  disowned  God  and 
Christ,  as  a  point  of  liberty  in  the  state  or  to  accom- 
modate unbelievers,  so  we  are  required  by  no  principle 
of  American  right  or  law  to  make  our  schools  unchris- 
tian, to  accommodate  Turks  and  Pagans,  or  rejecters 
and  infidels. 

Common  schools,  then,  are  to  be  Christian  schools. 
How  Christian  ?    In  the  same  sense,  I  answer,  that 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  89 

Catholics  and  Protestants  are  Christians,  in  the  same 
sense  that  our  government  is  Christian,  in  the  same 
sense  that  Christendom  is  Christian,  that  is,  in  the  rec- 
ognition of  God  and  Christ  and  providence  and  the 
Bible.  I  fully  agree  with  our  Catholic  friends  regard- 
ing what  they  say  in  deprecation  of  a  godless  system  of 
education.  Dr.  Chalmers,  engaged  in  a  society  to  estab- 
lish Catholic  schools  in  Glasgow,  went  so  far  as  to  say, 
that  if  he  had  not  been  able  to  obtain  "  favorable 
terms  from  the  priest,  that  is,  the  liberty  of  making 
the  Bible  a  school-book,"  he  would  still  have  perse- 
vered, "  on  the  principle  that  a  Catholic  population, 
with  the  capacity  of  reading,  are  a  more  hopeful  sub- 
ject than  without  it."  Perhaps  he  was  right,  but  the 
statistics  reported  in  France,  a  few  years  ago,  showing 
that  public  crimes,  in  the  different  departments,  were 
very  nearly  in  the  ratio  of  education,  increasing  too 
in  the  ratio  of  the  increase  of  education,  are  sufficient 
to  throw  a  heavy  shade  of  doubt  on  the  value  of  all 
attempts  to  educate,  that  increase  the  power  of  men 
and  add  no  regulative  force  of  principle  and  charac- 
ter. It  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  most  perilous  kind  of 
beneficence.  The  chances  are  far  too  great  that 
knowledge,  without  principle,  will  turn  out  to  be  only 
the  equipment  of  knaves  and  felons. 
^  The  greater  reason  is  there  that  our  Catholic  fel- 
low-citizens should  not  do  what  they  can  to  separate 
all  the  schools  of  the  nation  from  Christian  truth  and 
influence,  by  requiring  a  surrender  of  everything 
Christian  in  the  schools,  to  accommodate  their  secta- 


W  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

rian  position.  Or  if  they  reply  that  they  would  wholly 
supplant  the  common  schools,  leaving  only  parochial 
and  sectarian  schools  in  their  place,  on  the  ground 
that  our  government  cannot,  without  some  infringe- 
ment on  religion,  be  made  to  coalesce  with  anytliing 
Christian,  then  is  it  seen  they  are  endeavoring  to  make 
the  state  "  godless  "  in  order  to  make  the  school  Chris- 
tian. Exactly  this,  indeed,  one  of  their  most  distin- 
guished and  capable  teachers  in  Pennsylvania  is  just 
now  engaged  to  effect ;  insisting  that  the  civil  state 
has  no  right  to  educate  children  at  all ;  not  only  con- 
troverting a  constituent  element  of  our  civil  order, 
but  claiming  it  as  a  Christian  right  that  the  state 
shall  exercise  no  Christian  function.  Which  then  is 
better,  a  godless  government  or  a  godless  school  ? 
And  if  his  OAvn  church  will  not  suffer  a  godless 
school,  what  has  it  more  earnestly  insisted  on  than 
the  horrible  impiety  of  a  state  separated  from  God 
and  religion,  and  the  consequent  duty  of  all  kings 
and  magistrates  to  be  servants  and  defenders  of  the 
church  ?  The  Catholic  doctrine  is  plainly  in  a  dilemma 
here,  and  can  noway  be  accommodated.  If  the  state 
is  godless,  then  it  should  as  certainly  withdraw  from 
that  as  from  the  school,  which,  if  it  persists  in  doing, 
it  as  certainly  does  what  it  can,  under  the  pretext  of 
religion,  to  empty  both  the  state  and  the  schools  of 
all  religion. 

The  true  ideal  state  manifestly  is,  one  school  and 
one  Christianity.  But  it  does  not  follow  that  we  are 
to  have  as  many  schools  as  we  have  distinct  views  of 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  91 

Christianity,  because  we  have  not  so  many  distinct 
Christianities.  Nor  is  anything  more  cruel  and  abomi- 
nable than  to  take  the  little  children  apart,  whom 
Christ  embraced  so  freely,  and  make  them  parties  to 
all  our  grown-up  discords,  whom  Christ  made  one  with 
himself  and  each  other  in  their  lovelier  and,  God 
forgive  us  if  perchance  it  also  be,  their  wiser  age. 
Let  us  draw  near  rather  to  the  common  Christ  we  pro- 
fess, doing  it  through  them  and  for  their  sake,  and 
see  if  we  cannot  find  how  to  set  them  together  under 
Christ  as  his  common  flock. 

In  most  of  our  American  communities,  especially 
those  which  are  older  and  more  homogeneous,  we  have 
no  difficulty  in  retaining  the  Bible  in  the  schools  and 
doing  everything  necessary  to  a  sound  Christian  train- 
ing. Nor,  in  the  larger  cities  and  the  more  recent 
settlements,  where  the  population  is  partly  Catholic, 
is  there  any  the  least  difficulty  in  arranging  a  plan  so 
as  to  yield  the  accommodation  they  need,  if  only 
there  were  a  real  disposition  on  both  sides  to  have  the 
arrangement.  And  precisely  here,  I  suspect,  is  the 
main  difficulty.  There  may  have  been  a  want  of  con- 
sideration sometimes  manifested  on  the  Protestant 
side,  or  a  willingness  to  thrust  our  own  forms  of  re- 
ligious teaching  on  the  children  of  Catholics.  Wherever 
we  have  insisted  on  retaining  the  Protestant  Bible  as 
a  school  book,  and  making  the  use  of  it  by  the  cliil- 
dren  of  Catholic  families  compulsory,  there  has  been 
good  reason  for  complaining  of  our  intolerance.  But 
there  is  a  much  greater  difficulty,  I  fear,  and  more  in- 


92  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

vincible,  on  the  other  side.  In  New  York,  the  Catho- 
lics complained  of  the  reading  of  the  Protestant 
Scriptures  in  the  schools,  and  of  the  text-books  em- 
ployed, some  of  which  contained  hard  expressions 
against  the  Catholic  church.  The  Bible  was  accord- 
ingly withdrawn  from  the  schools  and  all  religious  in- 
struction discontinued.  The  text-books  of  the  schools 
were  sent  directly  to  Archbishop  Hughes  in  person, 
to  receive  exactly  such  expurgations  as  he  and  his 
clergy  would  direct.  They  declined  the  offer  by  a 
very  slender  evasion,  and  it  was  afterward  found  that 
some  of  the  books  complained  of  were  in  actual  use 
in  their  own  church  schools,  though  already  removed 
from  the  schools  of  the  city.  Meantime,  the  immense 
and  very  questionable  sacrifice  thus  made,  to  accom- 
modate the  complaints  of  the  Catholics,  resulted  in 
no  discontinuance  of  their  schools,  neither  in  any  im- 
portant accession  to  the  common  schools  of  the  city 
from  the  children  of  Catholic  families.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  priests  now  change  their  note  and  begin  to 
complain  that  the  schools  are  "  godless "  or  "  athe- 
istical "  ;  just  as  they  have  required  them  to  be.  In 
facts  like  these,  fortified  by  the  fact  that  some  of  the 
priests  are  even  denying,  in  public  lectures,  the  right 
of  the  state  to  educate  children  at  all,  we  seem  to  dis- 
cover an  absolute  determination  that  the  children 
shall  be  withdrawn,  at  whatever  cost,  and  that  no 
terms  of  accommodation  shall  be  satisfactory.  It  is 
not  that  satisfaction  is  impossible,  but  that  there  is 
really  no  desire  for  it.     Were  there  any  desire,  the 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  93 

ways  in  which  it  may  be  accomplished  are  many  and 
various. 

1.  Make  the  use  of  the  Bible  in  the  Protestant  or 
Douay  version  optional. 

2.  Compile  a  book  of  Scripture  reading  lessons  by 
agreement  from  both  versions. 

3.  Provide  for  religious  instruction,  at  given  hours 
or  on  a  given  day,  by  the  clergy  or  by  qualified  teachers 
such  as  the  parents  may  choose. 

4.  Prepare  a  book  of  Christian  morality,  distinct 
from  a  doctrine  of  religion  or  a  faith,  which  shall  be 
taught  indiscriminately  to  all  the  scholars.* 

*I  am  not  aware  of  any  attempt  that  has  hitherto  been  made  to 
adjust  an  agreement  on  the  basis  of  this  distinction.  The  follow- 
ing beautiful  card,  prepared  by  Archbishop  Whately,  to  be  con- 
spicuously printed  and  hung  in  the  Irish  schools,  was  accepted  by 
the  whole  Board,  including  the  Catholic  Archbishop ;  in  which 
we  have,  at  once,  an  example  of  what  I  mean  by  the  distinction 
stated,  and  also  a  proof  that,  so  far  at  least,  the  distinction  is 
available  as  a  basis  of  agreement. 

"Christians  should  endeavor,  as  the  Apostle  Paul  commands 
them,  to  '  live  peaceably  with  all  men '  (Rom.  ch.  xii,  v.  18),  even 
with  those  of  a  different  religious  persuasion. " 

"Our  Saviour  Christ  commanded  his  disciples  'to  love  one 
another.'  He  taught  them  to  love  even  their  enemies,  to  bless 
those  that  cursed  them,  and  pray  for  those  that  persecuted  them. 
He  himself  prayed  for  his  murderers." 

"Many  men  hold  erroneous  doctrines;  but  we  ought  not  to 
hate  or  persecute  them.  We  ought  to  seek  for  the  truth,  and  to 
hold  fast  what  we  are  convinced  is  the  truth;  but  not  to  treat 
harshly  those  who  are  in  error.  Jesus  Christ  did  not  intend  his 
religion  to  be  forced  on  men  by  violent  means.  He  would  not  al- 
low his  disciples  to  fight  for  him." 


94  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

Out  of  these  and  other  elements  like  these  it  is  not 
difficult  to  construct,  by  agreement,  such  a  plan  as 

' '  If  any  persons  treat  us  unkindly,  we  must  not  do  the  same  to 
them,  for  Christ  and  his  apostles  have  taught  us  not  to  return  evil 
for  evil.  If  we  would  obey  Christ,  we  must  do  to  others,  not  as 
they  do  to  us,  but  as  we  would  wish  them  to  do  to  us. " 

' '  Quarrehng  with  our  neighbors,  and  abusing  them,  is  not  the 
way  to  convince  them  that  we  are  in  the  right  and  they  in  the 
wrong.  It  is  more  likely  to  convince  them  that  we  have  not  a 
Christian  spirit," 

* '  We  ought  to  show  ourselves  followers  of  Christ,  who  *  when 
he  was  reviled,  reviled  not  again,'  (1  Pet.  ch.  ii,  v.  23,)  by  behaving 
gently  and  kindly  to  every  one." 

If  I  rightly  understand,  it  is  over  Christianity  as  a  faith,  a 
divine  mystery,  that  the  Catholic  Church  claims  a  more  especial 
jurisdiction,  and  not  over  the  preceptive  rules  of  conduct  on  the 
common  footing  of  intercourse  and  society.  Otherwise  it  must 
also  assume  a  jurisdiction  over  many  things  in  the  province  even 
of  the  common  law,  such  as  theft,  perjury,  slander,  and  all  moral 
definitions  that  turn  upon  the  question  of  '* malice  aforethought." 
And  if  it  can  not  submit  to  any  common  teaching  on  these  points, 
how  can  it  submit  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  state  itself  without  an 
equal  infringement  of  its  prerogative?  Is  it  then  impossible  to 
prepare  a  volume,  in  the  manner  of  the  above  card,  which,  without 
entering  into  any  matter  that  pertains  to  Christianity  as  a  faith,  or 
a  grace  of  salvation,  will  yet  comprise  everything  that  pertains  to 
the  relative  conditions  of  life,  and  even  to  God's  authority  con- 
cerning them ; — the  Christian  rules  of  forgiveness,  gentleness,  for- 
bearance, docility,  modesty,  charity,  truth,  justice,  temperance, 
industry,  reverence  toward  God,  drawn  out  in  chapters,  and  form- 
ally developed;  large  extracts  from  the  preceptive  parts  of  the 
Bible,  and  its  moral  teachings;  from  the  Proverbs  of  Solomon, 
from  the  histories  of  Joseph  and  Haman,  from  the  history  of  Jesus 
in  his  trial  and  crucifixion  taken  as  an  example  of  conduct,  from 
the  moral  teachings  also  of  his  sermon  on  the  mount,  the  parable 
of  the  good  Samaritan,  the  rule  of  the  lowest  seat,  and  other  like 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  95 

will  be  Christian,  and  will  not  infringe,  in  the  least, 
upon  the  tenets  of  either  party,  the  Protestant  or  the 
Catholic.  It  has  been  done  in  Holland  and,  where  it 
was  much  more  difficult,  in  Ireland.  The  British 
government,  undertaking  at  last,  in  good  faith,  to 
construct  a  plan  of  national  education  for  Ireland, 
appointed  Archbishop  Whately  and  the  Catholic  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin  with  five  others,  one  a  Presbyterian 
and  one  a  Unitarian,  to  be  a  board  or  committee  of 
superintendence.  They  agreed  upon  a  selection  of 
reading  lessons  from  both  translations  of  the  Script- 
ures, and,  by  means  of  a  system  of  restrictions  and 
qualifications  carefully  arranged,  providing  for  distinct 
methods  and  times  of  religious  instruction,  they  were 
able  to  construct  a  union,  not  godless  or  negative,  but 
thoroughly  Christian  in  its  character,  and  so  to  draw 
as  many  as  500,000  of  the  children  into  the  public 
schools ;  conferring  thus  upon  the  poor,  neglected,  and 
hitherto  oppressed  Irish,  greater  benefits  than  they 
have  before  received  from  any  and  all  public  measures 
since  the  Conquest. 

I  can  not  go  into  the   particulars  of  this  adjust- 

expositions ;  enlivened  also  by  those  picturesque  representations  of 
Scripture  that  display  the  manner  of  human  nature  in  matters  of 
moral  conduct,  such  as  the  parable  of  Jotham,  the  story  of  the 
ewe  lamb,  and  the  judgment  of  Solomon?  In  this  way  Christianity 
would  have  a  clear  and  well-ascertained  place  in  the  schools.  A 
Christian  conscience  would  be  formed,  and  a  habit  of  religious 
reverence.  And  though  we  could  wish  for  something  more,  we 
might  safely  leave  the  higher  mysteries  of  faith  and  salvation  to 
be  taught  elsewhere. 


96  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

ment,  neither  is  it  necessary.  Whoever  will  take 
pains  to  trace  out  the  particular  features  of  the  plan, 
will  see  that  such  an  adjustment  is  possible.  Enough 
is  it  for  the  present  to  say  that  what  has  been  can  be, 
and  that  if  there  is  a  real  and  true  desire  in  the  two 
parties  to  this  coming  controversy,  to  settle  any  plan 
•that  will  unite  and  satisfy  them  both,  it  will  be  done. 
It  may  never  be  done  in  such  a  manner  as  to  silence 
all  opposition  or  attack  from  the  ultra-Protestant 
party  on  one  side,  and  the  ultra-Catholic  on  the  other. 
Bigotry  will  have  its  way  and  will  assuredly  act  in 
character  here,  as  it  has  in  all  ages  past  and  does  in 
Ireland  now.  The  cry  will  be  raised  on  one  side,  that 
the  Bible  is  given  up  because  it  is  read  only  at  the 
option  of  the  parents,  or  because  only  extracts  from  it 
are  read,  though  the  extracts  amount  to  nearly  the 
whole  book,  or  because  they  are,  some  of  them,  made 
from  the  Catholic  and  some  from  the  Protestant  ver- 
sion ;  whereas,  if  only  this  or  that  catechism  were 
taught,  with  not  a  word  of  Scripture,  no  complaint  of 
a  loss  of  the  Bible  would  be  heard  of;  or  if  the 
Psalter  translation  were  read,  instead  of  the  Psalms, 
it  would  be  regarded  as  no  subject  of  complaint  at  all. 
On  the  other,  the  Catholic  side,  it  will  be  insisted  that 
the  church  authority  is  given  up,  though  every  word 
and  teaching  is  by  and  from  it,  or  that  religion  itself 
is  corrupted  by  the  profane  mixtures  of  a  Protestant 
proximity  and  intercourse.  Probably  the  bigots,  on 
both  sides,  will  have  much  to  say  in  deprecation  of 
the  "  godless  system  of  education,"  and  yet  there  will 


C^^MMON    SCHOOLS.  97 

be  more  religious  teaching  and  more  impression  made 
of  true  religion,  by  that  cordial  and  Christian  adjust- 
ment of  differences  which  brings  the  children  of  two 
hostile  bands  together  in  this  manner,  than  by  whole 
days  and  weeks  of  drill  and  catechism  in  separate 
schools. 

There  is  a  great  deal  of  cant  in  this  complaint  of 
godless  education,  or  the  defect  of  religious  instruction 
in  schools,  as  Baptist  Noel,  Dr.  Vaughan  and  other  dis- 
tinguished English  writers  have  abundantly  shown.  It 
is  not,  of  course,  religious  instruction  for  a  child  to  be 
drilled,  year  upon  year,  in  spelling  out  the  words  of 
the  Bible,  as  a  reading  book ;  it  may  be  only  an  exercise 
that  answers  the  problem  how  to  dull  the  mind  most 
effectually  to  all  sense  of  the  Scripture  words,  and 
communicate  least  of  their  meaning.  Nay,  if  the 
Scriptures  were  entirely  excluded  from  the  schools, 
and  all  formal  teaching  of  religious  doctrine,  I  would 
yet  undertake,  if  I  could  have  my  liberty  as  a  teacher, 
to  communicate  more  of  real  Christian  truth  to  a 
Catholic  and  a  Protestant  boy,  seated  side  by  side,  in 
the  regulation  of  their  treatment  of  each  other,  as 
related  in  terms  of  justice  and  charity,  and  their  gov- 
ernment as  members  of  the  school  community,  where 
truth,  order,  industry,  and  obedience  are  duties  laid 
upon  the  conscience  under  God,  than  they  will  ever 
draw  from  any  catechism  or  have  worn  into  their 
brain  by  the  dull  and  stammering  exercise  of  a  Script- 
ure reading  lesson.  The  Irish  schools  have  a  distinct 
Christian  character,  only  not  as  distinctly  sectarian 


98  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

as  if  tliey  were  wholly  Protestant  or  wholly  Catholic. 
They  are  Christian  schools,  such  as  ours  may  be  and 
ought  to  be,  and,  I  trust,  will  be  to  the  latest  genera- 
tions, nor  any  the  less  so  that  they  are  common  schools. 
Neither  is  it  to  be  imagined  or  felt  that  religion  has 
lost  its  place  in  the  scheme  of  education,  because  the 
Scriptures  are  not  read  as  a  stated  and  compulsory 
exercise,  or  because  the  higher  mysteries  of  Christian- 
ity as  a  faith  or  doctrine  of  salvation  are  not  gener- 
ally taught,  but  only  the  Christian  rules  of  conduct,  as 
pertaining  to  the  common  relations  of  duty  under 
God.  What  is  wanting  may  still  be  provided  for,  only 
less  adequately,  in  other  places ;  at  home,  in  the 
church,  or  in  lessons  given  by  the  clergy.  It  is  not 
as  when  children  are  committed  to  a  given  school, 
like  the  Girard  College,  for  example,  there  to  receive 
their  whole  training,  and  where,  if  it  excludes  religion, 
they  have  no  religious  training  at  all. 

I  do  then  take  the  ground,  and  upon  this  I  insist,  as 
the  true  American  ground,  that  we  are  to  have  com- 
mon schools,  and  never  to  give  them  up  for  any  pur- 
pose, or  in  obedience  to  any  demand  whatever  ;  never 
to  give  them  up,  either  by  formal  surrender,  or  by 
implication,  as  by  a  distribution  of  moneys  to  ecclesi- 
astical and  sectarian  schools.  The  state  can  not  dis- 
tribute funds,  in  this  manner,  without  renouncing  even 
a  first  principle  of  our  American  institutions,  and  be- 
coming the  supporter  of  a  sect  in  religion.  It  may  as 
well  support  the  priests  of  a  church,  as  support  the 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  99 

schools  of  a  church,  separated  from  other  schools,  for 
the  very  purpose  of  being  subjected  to  the  priests. 

But  while  we  are  firm  in  this  attitude  and  hold  it 
as  a  point  immovable,  we  must,  for  that  very  reason, 
be  the  more  ready  to  do  justice  to  the  religious  con- 
victions of  all  parties  or  sects,  and  to  yield  them  such 
concessions,  or  .enter  into  such  arrangements  as  will 
accommodate  their  peculiar  principles  and  clear  them 
of  any  infringement. 

But  it  will  be  objected  by  some,  that  while  this 
should  be  done,  provided  there  were  any  thing  to  hope 
from  it,  there  is  really  no  hope  that  our  concessions  or 
modifications  will  be  of  any  avail,  and  therefore  that 
they  should  not  be  made  at  all ;  for  they  will  only  so 
far  abridge  the  value  of  our  schools  without  yielding 
any  recompense  for  the  loss.  Nevertheless  let  us  offer 
the  modifications,  offer  any  terms  of  union  that  can  be 
offered  without  a  virtual  destruction  or  renunciation 
of  the  system ;  and  then  if  they  are  not  accepted  it 
will  not  be  our  fault.  I  very  much  fear  they  will  not 
be,  that  an  absolute  separation  of  the  Catholic  child- 
ren from  our  schools  is  already  determined,  and  that 
no  revision  of  the  sentence  can  be  had.  Still  it  is 
much  for  us  to  take  away  every  excuse  for  such  a 
determination,  and  every  complaint  or  pretext  by 
which  it  is  justified. 

Then,  having  done  it,  we  can  take  the  ground  ex- 
plicitly and  clear  of  all  ambiguity,  that  they  who 
exclude  themselves  are  not  Americans,  and  are  not 
acting  in  their  complaints  or  agitations  on  any  prin- 


100  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

ciple  that  meets  the  tenor  of  our  American  institu- 
tions. Nothing  will  be  more  evident,  and  they  should 
be  made  to  bear  the  whole  odium  of  it.  If  to  keep 
their  people  apart  from  the  dreaded  influence  of 
Protestant  Christianity  they  were  to  buy  townships  of 
land  or  large  quarters  in  our  cities,  to  be  occupied 
only  by  Catholics,  walled  in  by  their  own  by-laws,  and 
allowing  no  Protestant  family  or  tradesman  or  pub- 
lican to  reside  in  the  precinct,  no  one  to  enter  it 
without  a  pass ;  and  then  to  come  before  our  legisla- 
tures in  petition  that  we  will  distribute  moneys  to  sup- 
port their  roads,  and  pay  their  constables  and  gate- 
keepers ;  they  would  scarcely  do  a  greater  insult  to 
our  American  society  than  they  do  in  these  separa- 
tions from  our  common  schools,  and  the  petitions  they 
are  offering  to  be  justified  and  rewarded  in  the  sepa- 
ration. 

But  we  tax  them,  it  will  be  said,  for  the  support  of 
the  common  schools,  and  then,  receiving  no  benefit 
from  the  tax  they  pay,  they  are  obliged  to  tax  them- 
selves again  for  schools  of  their  own.  It  is  even  so, 
and  for  one,  apart  from  all  resentment,  I  rejoice  in  it ; 
unless  they  have  grievances  put  upon  them  by  the 
organization  of  our  schools,  such  as  justify  their  with- 
drawal. We  tax  the  Quakers  for  defect  of  military 
service  and  bachelors  who  have  no  children,  and  we 
ought,  much  more,  to  tax  the  refractory  un-American 
position  taken  by  these  Catholic  strangers,  after  we 
have  greeted  them  with  so  great  hospitality  and  loaded 
them  with  so  many  American  privileges.  If  now 
they  will  not  enter  into  the  great  American  institu- 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  101 

tion,  so  fundamental  to  our  very  laws  and  liberties, 
let  them  pay  for  it  and  measure  their  deserts  by  their 
dissatisfactions.  If  they  will  be  foreigners  still 
among  our  people,  let  them  have  remembrances  that 
interpret  their  conduct  to  them  in  a  way  of  just  em- 
phasis. 

Meantime  let  us  be  sure  also  of  this,  that  a  day  is 
at  hand  when  they  will  weary  of  this  kind  of  separa- 
tion, and  will  visit  on  their  priests,  who  have  required 
it,  a  just  retribution.  One  generation,  or  possibly  two, 
may  bear  this  separation,  this  burden  of  double  taxa- 
tion, this  withdrawal  of  their  children  from  society 
and  its  higher  advantages,  to  be  shut  up  or  penned  as 
foreign  tribes  in  the  state,  thus  to  save  the  prejudices 
of  a  discarded  and  worthless  nationality  ;  but  another 
generation  is  to  come  who  will  have  drunk  more 
deeply  into  the  spirit  of  our  institutions  and  attained 
to  a  more  sufficient  understanding  of  the  hard  lot  put 
upon  them,  in  this  manner,  by  a  jealous  and  over- 
bearing priesthood.  Then  comes  a  reaction  both 
against  them  and  their  religion  ;  then  a  flocking  back 
to  the  schools  to  reap  their  advantages.  And  it  will 
be  strange  if  the  very  measure  now  counted  on  as  the 
means  of  preserving  this  class  of  our  citizens  in  the 
Catholic  faith  does  not,  of  itself,  become  one  of  the 
strongest  reasons  for  the  alienation  of  their  children 
from  it.  Of  this  we  may  be  quite  sure,  and  it  ought 
not  to  be  any  secret  to  them,  that  their  children  of  the 
coming  time  will  at  last  find  a  way  to  be  Americans  ; 
if  not  under  the  Pope  and  by  the  altars,  then  without 
them. 


102  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

Neither  let  it  be  said  that  this  is  a  matter  which 
lies  at  the  disposal  of  politics,  and  that  our  political 
demagogues  will  sell  anything,  even  our  birthright  as 
a  people,  to  carry  the  vote  of  a  campaign.  The  ex- 
periment has  just  been  tried  in  Detroit  with  a  most 
signal  and  disastrous  failure.  In  cases  where  the 
issue  touches  no  religious  interest  or  feeling  of  the 
Protestants,  and  the  Catholics  can  be  gained  to  throw 
a  casting  vote  on  one  side  or  the  other,  the  politicians 
will  not  deal  altogether  absurdly  if  they  consent  to  buy 
that  vote  by  some  great  promise ;  and  I  have  so  little 
confidence  in  many  of  them,  under  the  prodigious 
temptations  of  a  canvass,  as  to  take  it  for  granted 
that  they  will  stick  at  nothing  which  is  possible.  But 
here,  thank  God,  is  one  thing  that  is  impossible,  and 
whatever  politician  ventures  on  the  experiment  will 
find  that  he  has  not  worked  his  problem  rightly, — 
that  if  Catholics  can  be  often  united  and  led  in  masses 
to  the  vote,  so  Protestants  will  sometimes  go  in  masses 
where  they  are  not  led  save  by  their  principles.  That 
our  legislatures  cannot  and  will  not  be  gained  to  allow 
the  ruling  out  of  the  Scriptures  and  all  religious  in- 
struction from  the  schools,  as  in  New  York  city,  I  am 
by  no  means  certain.  I  very  much  fear  that  they 
will.  But  that  they  can  ever  become  supporters  and 
fund-holders  to  ecclesiastical  schools,  or  be  induced  to 
give  up  common  schools,  I  do  not  believe.  Whatever 
politician  or  political  party  ventures  on  that  experi- 
ment, will  find  that  he  has  rallied  a  force  manifold 
greater  against  him  than  he  has  drawn  to  his  aid.    A 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  103 

point  so  thoroughly  un-American,  so  directl}^  opposite 
also  to  the  deepest  convictions  of  the  great  Protest- 
ant majorities  of  the  country,  cannot  be  carried,  and 
if  pressed,  will  suffice  to  fix  a  stigma  that  is  immova- 
able  upon  any  leader  who  is  desperate  enough  to  try 
the  experiment. 

Here  Lwill  close.  The  subject  is  a  painful  one, 
and  not  any  the  less  so  that  the  lin«  of  our  duty  is 
plain.  It  cannot  be  said  by  any,  the  most  prejudiced 
critic,  that  our  conduct  as  a  people  to  strangers  and 
men  of  another  religion  has  not  been  generous  and 
free  beyond  any  former  example  in  the  history  of  man- 
kind. We  have  used  hospitality  without  grudging. 
In  one  view  it  seems  to  be  a  dark  and  rather  mysteri- 
ous providence  that  we  have  thrown  upon  us,  to  be 
our  fellow-citizens,  such  multitudes  of  people,  de- 
pressed for  the  most  part  in  character,  instigated  by 
prejudices  so  intense  against  our  religion.  But  there 
is  a  brighter  and  more  hopeful  side  to  the  picture. 
These  Irish  prejudices,  embittered  by  the  crushing 
tyranny  of  England  for  three  whole  centuries  and 
more,  will  gradually  yield  to  the  kindness  of  our  hos- 
pitality and  to  the  discovery  that  it  is  not  so  much 
the  Protestant  religion  that  has  been  their  enemy,  as 
the  jealousy  and  harsh  dominion  of  conquest.  God 
knows  exactly  what  is  wanting,  both  in  us  and  them, 
and  God  has  thrown  us  together  that,  in  terms  of 
good  citizenship  and  acts  of  love,  we  may  be  gradually 
melted  into  one  homogeneous  people.  Probably  no 
existing  form  of  Christianity  is  perfect ;  the  Romish 


104  COMMON    SCHOOLS. 

we  are  sure  is  not ;  the  Puritan  was  not,  else  why 
should  it  SO  soon  have  lost  its  rigors  ?  The  Protest- 
ant, more  generally  viewed,  contains  a  wider  variety 
of  elements,  but  these  too  seem  to  be  waiting  for  some 
process  of  assimilation  that  shall  weld  them  finally 
together.  Therefore  God,  we  may  suppose,  throws 
all  these  diverse  multitudes,  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
together,  in  crossings  so  various,  and  a  ferment  of  ex- 
perience so  manifold,  that  he  may  wear  us  into  some 
other  and  higher  and  more  complete  unity  than  we 
are  able,  of  ourselves  and  by  our  own  wisdom,  to  set- 
tle. Let  us  look  for  this,  proving  all  things  and 
holding  fast  that  which  is  good,  until  the  glorious  re- 
sult of  a  perfected  and  comprehensive  Christianity  is 
made  to  appear  and  is  set  up  here  for  a  sign  to  all 
nations.  Let  us  draw  our  strange  friends  as  close  to 
us  as  possible,  not  in  any  party  scramble  for  power, 
but  in  a  solemn  reference  of  duty  to  the  nation  and 
to  God.  I  cannot  quite  renounce  the  hope  that  a  right 
and  cordial  advance  on  our  part, — one  that,  duly  care- 
ful to  preserve  the  honors  of  Christianity,  concedes 
everything  required  by  our  great  principle  of  equal 
right  to  all,  and  as  firmly  refuses  to  yield  anything  so 
distinctively  American  as  this  noble  institution,  iden- 
tified with  our  history  as  the  blood  with  the  growth 
of  our  bodies, — will  command  the  respect  and  finally 
the  assent  of  our  Catliolic  friends  themselves.  And 
since  God  has  better  things  in  store  even  for  religion 
than  the  repugnant  attitudes  of  its  professed  disciples 
can  at  present  permit,  I  would  even  hope  that  he  may 


COMMON    SCHOOLS.  105 

use  an  institution  so  far  external  to  the  church,  as  a 
means  of  cementing  the  generations  to  come  in  a 
closer  unity  and  a  more  truly  catholic  peace  ;  that,  as 
being  fellow-citizens  with  each  other,  under  the  state, 
in  the  ingenuous  days  of  youth  and  youthful  disci- 
pline, they  may  learn  how  also  to  be  no  more  stran- 
gers and  foreigners,  but  fellow-citizens  with  the  saints 
and  of  the  household  of  God. 


lY. 

THE  CHRISTIAN  TRINITY  A  PRACTICAL  TRUTH.* 


It  is  most  remarkable  that  om'  Lord  Jesus  Christ, 
at  just  the  moment  when  we  look  to  find  him  offering 
what  is  most  of  all  practical  and  distinctive  in  his 
Gospel,  most  necessary  in  that  view  to  its  power  in 
the  earth,  advances  just  the  Christian  Trinity  and 
nothing  else.  His  work  is  now  done,  and  the  hour  of 
his  final  ascension  is  come.  His  disciples  are  gathered 
round  him  to  receive  their  commission  of  trust  and 
the  farewell  address,  so  to  speak,  of  their  Great 
Leader.  Now  he  will  seize  on  the  first  truths  of  the 
kingdom  and  put  them  forward.  No  matter  of  mere 
theory  or  of  idle  curiosity  will  obtrude.  He  will  give 
them  counsel  for  the  guidance  of  their  future  course ; 
cautions,  encouragements,  suggestions  of  heavenly 
wisdom.  He  will  bring  out  the  great  truth  of  salva- 
tion, the  change  to  be  wrought  in  mankind,  the  man- 
ner and  means  of  the  change ;  the  way  to  preach, 
and  what  to  preach,  and  all  that  is  necessary  to  the 
established   polity  and   wise    conduct   of  the    future 

*  Contributed  to  the  New  EnglarwUr,  November,  1854,  Vol.  XII. 


THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY.  107 

church  about  to  be  gathered  in  all  parts  of  the  world 
by  their  ministry.  What  then  does  he  say  ?  "  Go  ye 
therefore  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the 
name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  tlie  Holy 
Ghost."  This,  and  this  alone,  is  the  commission. 
What  then  does  it  mean,  that  Christ  himself,  the  sim- 
plest and  most  practical  and,  in  the  higher  sense,  most 
rational  of  all  teachers,  in  a  parting  charge  to  his 
disciples,  gives  them  not  any  truth  or  vestige  of  truth 
over  and  above  this  one  difficult,  ever  to  be  contested 
formula  of  Trinity  ?  At  first  view  the  fact  appears 
to  have  no  agreement  either  with  the  time  or  with  the 
general  manner  of  the  teacher  ;  but,  as  we  pause  upon 
it  and  ponder  it  a  little  more  deeply,  we  begin  to  sus- 
pect that  this  formula  of  Trinity  is  given,  simply 
because  it  is  the  Gospel  in  its  most  condensed  term 
of  statement,  and  is  put  deliberately  forward  in  this 
manner  in  the  foreground  of  the  commission,  as  a 
general  denomination  for  all  that  is  practical  in  the 
Christian  truth.  And  that  such  was  the  real  under- 
standing of  Christ  sufficiently  appears  in  the  fact, 
that  the  commission  given  is  itself  a  working  com- 
mission. They  are  to  go  "  teaching  and  baptizing  all 
nations,"  and  the  converts  made  are  to  be  baptized 
into  the  name  of  the  Sacred  Three,  as  being  the  name 
of  that  power  by  which  alone  they  are  renewed,  and 
are  to  have  their  spiritual  cleansing  accomplished.  In 
some  deeper  sense  of  it  open  to  him,  the  Trinity,  as 
we  are  thus  left  to  understand,  is  the  underlying 
truth,  and  contains  the  whole  working  matter  of  his 
Gospel. 


108  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

No  sentiment  or  opinion  could  be  farther  off  from 
the  current  impressions  of  our  time.  That  the  Chris- 
tian Trinity  is,  in  any  sense,  a  practical  tnith  appears 
in  our  day  to  be  very  generally  unsuspected. 

Thus  among  the  outsiders,  the  light-minded  critics 
and  worldly  cavilers  of  profane  literature,  the  Trinity 
is  taken,  ex  concessis^  for  a  standing  example  of  the 
utterly  barren  futilities  preached  and  contended  for 
as  articles  of  religion. 

The  class  of  Unitarian  believers  handle  the  subject 
more  seriously,  and  arrive  at  the  conclusion,  which 
they  assert  with  peremptory  confidence,  that  it  is  a 
stupendous  theologic  fiction,  a  plain  absurdity  in  itself, 
and  in  its  effects,  one  of  the  worst  practical  hind- 
rances to  the  power  of  the  Gospel ;  for  how  can  it  be 
less  when  it  annihilates  the  simplicity  of  God,  con- 
fuses the  mind  of  the  worshiper,  and  even  makes  the 
faith  of  God  an  impossible  subject  to  the  unbeliever  ? 

Meantime  how  many  of  the  formally  professed  be- 
lievers of  the  doctrine  are  free  to  acknowledge  that 
they  see  no  practical  value  in  it,  and  will  even  blame 
the  preacher  who  maintains  it  for  spending  his  time 
and  breath  in  a  matter  so  far  out  of  the  way  of  the 
practical  life,  a  merely  curious  article  or  riddle  of  the 
faith !  And  how  many  others,  even  of  the  more 
serious  class  of  believers,  would  say,  if  they  were  to 
speak  out  what  is  in  their  feeling,  that  they  take  the 
Trinity  as  a  considerable  drawback  on  the  idea  of 
God  !  They  would  recoil  indeed  from  the  thought,  as 
being  even  a  blamable  irreverence,  of  imagining  any 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  109 

improvement  of  God ;  but  if  they  could  think  of  him 
as  a  simple  unit  of  personality,  in  the  manner  of  the 
Unitarians,  he  could  consciously  be  just  so  much 
more  to  their  mind,  and  their  practical  relations 
towards  him  would  be  proportionally  cleared  and 
comforted. 

An  issue  is  thus  made  up,  it  will  be  seen,  between 
the  ascending  Redeemer,  on  one  side,  and  a  very  gen- 
eral sentiment  or  opinion  of  the  Christian  world  on 
the  other,  regarding  the  practical  import  of  the  Chris- 
tian Trinity.  On  the  side  last  named,  it  is  very  com- 
monly asserted  that  it  has  no  practical  value,  and  is 
only  a  kind  of  scholastic  futility  which,  if  we  do  not 
reject,  we  receive  as  a  faith  wholly  inoperative  and 
useless.  On  the  side  of  the  Son  of  God  himself,  it  is 
assumed  to  be,  in  fact,  a  condensed  expression  for  all 
that  is  operative  and  powerful  in  the  Christian  faith. 
Protected  by  so  great  a  name,  it  requires  no  courage 
in  us  to  venture  some  considerations,  from  our  human 
point  of  view,  that  may  go  to  illustrate  the  intense 
practical  significance  of  this  great  truth.  For  what 
Christ  has  given  us  from  his  higher  point  of  authority 
evidently  needs  in  this,  as  in  other  cases,  to  be  natur- 
alized in  our  human  convictions  by  a  discovery  of  the 
want  on  our  own  side,  which  his  truth  is  given  to 
supply.  Indeed  it  has  often  seemed  to  us  that  noth- 
ing is  ever  needed,  as  regards  the  evidence  of  this 
much  litigated  truth,  but  to  know  it  in  its  practical 
uses,  and  perceive  the  sublime  facility  with  which  it 


110  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

limbers  the  play  of  our  thought  to  all  that  is  most 
transcendent  in  the  divine  nature  and  the  new 
economy  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ. 

In  asserting  the  immense  practical  value  thus  of 
the  Christian  Trinity,  we  do  not  mean,  it  is  hardly 
necessary  to  say,  that  the  Trinity  is  practical  in  tlie 
sense  of  presenting  something  to  be  done  or  practiced. 
Neither  is  it  practical  in  the  sense  of  showing  in  what 
manner  something  else  is  to  be  done.  It  is  practical 
only  as  an  instrument  of  thouglit,  action,  self-applica- 
tion to  all  the  great  matters  of  the  faith.  What  is 
more  practical  than  human  language  ?  And  as  by  the 
use  of  language  our  understandings  are  adjusted,  our 
feelings  expressed,  our  information  received,  our  mind 
itself  developed,  so  by  the  Christian  Trinity  it  is  that 
our  sense  of  God  is  opened ;  what  he  has  done  for  us 
and  will  do,  put  in  terms  of  use  ;  all  the  relations  of 
what  he  does  in  one  part  of  his  kingdom  to  what  he- 
has  instituted  and  done  in  another, — mysteries  of  law 
and  grace,  letter  and  spirit, — played  into  our  practi- 
cal apprehension,  so  that  by  mere  names  and  signals, 
our  faith  is  inducted  into  uses  before  we  can  discover 
reasons  and  settle  definitions.  The  Trinity,  in  short, 
is.  so  related  to 'the  Gospel  and  our  approach  to  God 
in  the  faith  of  the  Gospel,  that  the  grace  of  it,  with- 
out such  a  concomitant,  will  be  fatally  baffled  in  its 
access  and  rendered  practically  inefficient. 

But  this,  again,  we  could  not  say  of  all  the  possible 
or  existing  forms  of  Trinity  ;  for  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  conceptions  of  this  great  truth  are  held  by  many 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  Ill 

which  are  so  far  abhorrent  from  its  proper  simplicity, 
and  so  badly  distorted  by  the  perverse  ingenuity  of 
human  speculation,  as  to  oppose  great  hindrances  to 
the  practical  repose  of  faith,  and  even  to  counter- 
act, in  a  great  degree,  the  real  benefit  of  the  doctrine. 
We  undertake  to  show  the  practical  value  only  of  the 
Christian  Trinity,  or  Trinity  of  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures. 

And  the  Scriptures  offer  no  theoretic  or  scientific 
statement  of  the  doctrine  whatever,  give  us  nothing 
pertaining  to  the  subject  in  terms  of  logical  definition. 
They  assume  the  strict  unity  and  simplicity  of  God, 
that  he  is  one  substance  or  entity,  only  one ;  which 
one  they  also  assume  will,  at  least,  be  most  effectively 
thought  as  three,  a  threefold  grammatic  personality, 
or  three  persons.  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  These 
persons  are  not  even  called  persons,  but  are  only  set 
in  the  grammar  of  uses  silently  as  such.  Of  course 
it  is  nowhere  said  or  implied  that  they  are  three  per- 
sons in  the  same  sense  that  John,  James,  and  Peter 
are  three ;  and  the  mere  laws  of  grammar,  in  which 
they  stand,  support  no  such  inference,  any  more  than 
the  grammar  of  sex  supports  a  like  inference  respecting 
the  real  gender  of  the  sun  and  moon.  The  three  are 
persons,  evidently,  only  in  some  sense  that  recognizes 
a  radical  unity  of  substance  which  is  not  true  of  any 
three  men  ;  some  tropical,  or  instrumental  sense,  that 
needs  not  any  way  to  be,  and  cannot  be,  exactly  de- 
fined. The  plurality  therefore,  whatever  it  be,  does 
not  divide,  but  only  more  sufficiently  communicates, 
the  One, 


112  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

Our  argument  does  not  require  that  we  should  go 
into  any  discussion  regarding  either  the  evidence,  or 
the  interior  significance  of  the  Trinity.  It  fixes 
simply  on  the  Scripture  fact,  a  phenomenon  occurrent 
in  the  Scripture,  showing  its  practical  use  and  neces- 
sity. And  for  the  present,  we  shall  speak  as  if  it 
were  only  a  matter  of  form  or  language,  accommo- 
dated in  that  manner  to  our  finite  wants  and  uses, 
but  before  we  close,  shall  ascend  to  a  point  more  in- 
terior, and  to  higher  apprehensions  of  the  subject,  viz., 
to  the  discovery  of  something  more  interior  as  a 
ground  in  the  eternity  of  God,  antecedent  to  the  reve- 
lation  in  time.  Our  present  concern  is  to  show,  that 
assuming  the  oneness  and  infinity  of  God,  Trinity  is 
needed  as  a  way  of  conceiving  God  and  working  our 
piety  towards  him,  in  the  matters  of  grace  and 
redemption.  So  far.  Trinity  may  be  regarded  as  lan- 
guage for  God,  or  as  an  expedient  in  the  manner  of 
the  Sabellians.  The  argument  for  use  or  practical 
necessity,  will  be  greatly  simplified  by  including  in 
the  question  nothing  more  than  this :  or  at  least,  by 
including  nothing  more,  till  we  have  reached  a  point 
where  the  transition  to  a  deeper  view  of  the  subject 
can  be  made  with  advantage. 

As  a  grand  preliminary  in  this  mode  of  argument, 
we  need  to  observe,  that  in  conceiving  God,  we  are 
obliged  to  represent  him,  as  we  do  all  spiritual  reali- 
ties, by  images  and  figures  taken  from  things  we 
know.  And  then  there  is,  of  course,  a  sense  in  which 
the  representation  is  true,  and  a  sense  in  which  it  is 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  113 

not  true,  and  exactly  where  the  line  is  to  be  drawn, 
we  often  cannot  tell  more  exactly,  than  simply  to  say 
that  we  speak  in  a  figure.  Thus  we  describe  the 
heavenly  state  as  a  paradise,  a  garden,  watered  by  a 
river,  with  trees  of  healing  on  its  banks  ;  or  we  con- 
ceive it  as  a  city,  whose  height,  length,  and  breadth 
are  equal,  and  whose  walls  are  built  of  precious  stones ; 
and  then  we  cannot  tell  more  exactly  where  truth 
ends  and  error  begins,  than  simply  to  say  that  the 
representation  holds  figuratively,  and  not  literally. 

Or  we  may  take  a  different  illustration,  that  will 
assist  our  subject  in  other  respects.  We  say,  and 
most  of  us  have  no  thought  of  difficulty  in  affirming  it, 
that  God  is  a  person,  or  a  personal  being.  But  a  little 
reflection  will  show  us,  that  the  word  person  thus 
applied  is  only  a  figure  derived  from  our  finite  human 
personality,  and  is,  in  fact,  a  strictly  finite  word. 
After  all,  God  is  not  a  person  save  in  a  figure,  as  we 
shall  see  at  a  glance  if  we  ask  what  constitutes  our 
idea  of  a  person.  This  we  shall  readily  answer  out 
of  our  own  consciousness,  by  saying  that  a  person  is  a 
conscious  being,  an  agent  or  intelligent  self-active 
force,  exactly  what  our  consciousness  conceives  to  be 
included  in  itself.  But  the  moment  we  begin  to  recite 
the  inventory  of  our  consciousness,  we  find  that  almost 
every  article  in  it  is  in  such  a  type  of  measure  and 
mode,  that  we  cannot  refer  it  to  God  at  all.  Thus  a 
person  or  agent,  as  we  conceive  the  term,  drawing  on 
our  own  consciousness,  wills  ;  putting  forth  successively 
new  determinations  of  will,  without  which  new  deter- 
8 


114  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

minations  personality  is  null,  and  no  agency  at  all. 
But  God  never  does  that.  His  determinations  are  all 
passed  even  from  eternity.  So  a  person  thinks,  or  has 
successions  of  thought  coming  in,  as  it  were,  in  file, 
one  after  another.  God  never  thinks  in  any  such 
sense.  As  all  his  acts  are  done,  so  all  his  thoughts 
are  present  contemporaneously  from  eternity.  A 
person  or  intelligent  agent  reasons,  drawing  one  prop- 
osition out  of  others  :  in  this  sense  God  never  reasons. 
A  person  remembers :  God  never  remembers ;  for 
nothing  past  is  ever  out  of  mind.  A  person  hopes 
and  conjectures  :  God  does  neither  ;  for  the  future  is 
as  truly  present  to  him  as  the  past.  A  person  has 
e-motions,  simple  movings  out  of  feeling  into  the  fore- 
ground of  the  hour.  God  has  no  such  temporary 
movings,  in  which  one  feeling  jets  up  for  the  hour  into 
eminence,  and  takes  the  foreground  of  his  life ;  all 
movings  or  states  of  affection  are  in  him  at  once,  and 
appropriate  exactly  to  their  objects.  And  so  we  find 
that  a  very  great  part  certainly  of  what  we  were 
affirming,  in  the  assertion  that  God  is  a  person,  is  in 
some  other  view  not  true.  Literally,  God  is  not  a 
person  ;  for  the  very  word  is  finite  in  all  its  measures 
and  implications,  because  it  is  derived  from  our- 
selves. Figuratively,  he  is  a  person  ;  and  beyond  this, 
nothing  can  be  said  which  is  more  definite,  save  that 
he  is  in  some  sense  unconceived,  a  real  agent  who 
holds  himself  related  personally  to  us,  meeting  us  in 
terms  of  mutuality,  such  that  we  can  have  the  sense 
of  society  with  him,  and  the  confidence  of  his  society 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH  115 

with  US,  as  if  he  were  in  truth  a  literal  person  like 
ourselves. 

There  is  a  value  in  this  last  illustration,  beyond  the 
mere  showing  under  what  conditions  of  figure  we  are 
obliged  to  speak  of  the  divine  nature,  and  what  are 
the  conditions  of  truth  in  our  representation.  We 
do  not  remember  ever  to  have  seen  the  fact  noticed, 
but  we  do  exactly  the  same  thing,  as  regards  truth  or 
intelligent  comprehension,  when  we  say  that  God  is  a 
person,  that  we  do  when  we  say  that  he  is  three  per- 
sons, and  there  is  really  no  difficulty  in  one  case  that 
does  not  exist  in  the  other.  As  we  can  say  that  God 
is  a  person  without  any  real  denial  of  his  infinity,  so  we 
can  say  that  he  is  three  persons  without  any  breach  of 
his  unity.  Indeed,  we  shall  hereafter  see  that  he  is 
set  forth,  and  needs  to  be,  as  three  persons,  for  the 
very  purpose,  in  part,  of  mending  a  difficulty  created 
by  asserting  that  he  is  one  person ;  that  is,  to  save 
the  imi3ression  of  his  infinity.  The  word  person  is,  in 
either  case,  a  figure,  and  as  truly  in  one  as  in  the  other. 
And  if  the  question  be  raised,  what  correspondent 
reality  there  is  in  the  divine  nature  to  meet  and 
justify  the  figure,  there  can  plainly  be  no  literal  cor- 
respondence between  the  infinite  substance  of  God, 
and  any  merely  finite  term,  whether  one  or  three ;  or 
if  we  suppose  a  correspondence  undefinable  and  tropi- 
cal, it  may  as  well  answer  to  three  persons  as  to  one. 

Neither  is  there  any  difficulty  in  removing  the 
logical  objections  so  pertinaciously  urged  against  the 
Trinity,  on  the  ground  that  three  distinct  personal 


116  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

pronouns  are  applied  to  God,  requiring  us  to  regard 
him  as  a  council  or  plurality  of  beings  ;  after  Tvhich  it 
is  impossible  that  he  should  be  one  being.  Grammatic 
laws  and  relations  may  as  well  pass  into  figure  as 
mere  names  of  things.  Thus,  to  convey  a  certain 
undefined  or  indefinable  impression,  we  may  apply  the 
feminine  pronoun  she  to  a  ship,  using  a  grammatic 
term  of  gender  for  a  descriptive  and  representative 
purpose.  And  then,  to  represent  or  connect  another 
impression,  we  may  give  the  ship  a  masculine  name, 
such  as  Hercules  or  Agamemnon.  Whereupon  the 
man  of  logic,  scandalized  by  so  great  absurdity,  may 
begin  to  argue  that  since  the  ship  is  feminine  as  to 
gender  it  cannot  be  masculine ;  or  if  it  is  masculine 
then  it  cannot  be  feminine.  But  it  will  be  sufficient, 
for  any  one  but  him,  to  answer  that  we  use  these 
terms  of  gender  only  to  represent  some  indefinable, 
partially  correspondent  reality  which  we  can  signify 
by  this  short  method  better  than  by  any  other.  So  if 
it  be  urged  that  person  means  person,  and  number 
means  number,  by  the  inevitable  laws  of  grammar, 
and  that  when  we  have  called  God  three  persons,  it 
must  be  absurd  to  speak  any  longer  of  his  unity,  it  is 
sufficient  to  answer,  that  there  may  be  a  representa- 
tive personality  and  number,  as  well  as  a  representa- 
tive or  tropical  gender,  and  that  any  mere  logical 
practice  on  the  words  will,  in  both  cases,  be  equally 
futile  and  puerile.  Indeed,  the  pronoun  lie  applied  to 
each  one  of  the  persons  of  the  Trinity  is  itself  a  word 
of  gender,  as  truly  as  of  number  and  person,  and  it 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  117 

"VTOuld  not  be  as  great  an  offense  to  the  majority  of 
mankind  to  say  that  God  is  impersonal,  as  to  apply  to 
him  the  feminine  pronoun.  Why  then  should  it  create 
so  great  difficulty  that  God  is  represented  as  a  Trinity 
of  persons  ?  Why  not  go  into  a  logical  practice  on  the 
gender  of  the  pronoun,  as  well  as  on  the  number  and 
the  grammatic  personality  ?  There  may,  it  is  true,  be 
a  much  closer  degree  of  correspondence  in  these  latter 
cases  with  something  interior  in  God, — of  that  we 
shall  speak  hereafter, — but,  for  aught  that  appears,  the 
logical  process  covers  precisely  the  same  kind  of  falsity 
in  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

But  these  are  matters  introductive  and  preliminary. 
We  come  now  to  the  question  itself, — What  is  the 
practical  import  of  the  Trinity  ?  Wherein  consists  its 
value  ?  It  is  needed,  we  answer,  to  serve  two  main 
purposes : — 

I.  To  save  the  dimensions  or  the  practical  infinity  of 
God,  consistently  with  his  personality.  God  is  never 
fully  presented  to  the  mind,  or  adequately  conceived, 
except  when  he  is  conceived  under  these  two  conditions 
together ;  viz.,  as  a  being  really  infinite,  and  also  as 
existing  in  terms  of  society  and  personal  mutuality 
with  us.  Accordingly  we  shall  find,  on  the  right  and 
left  of  the  Christian  Trinity,  two  distinct  views  which 
are  both  fatally  defective  and  mutually  opposite  to 
each  other. 

First,  the  view  of  the  pantheists,  who  are  instigated 
by  a  desire  to  establish,  or  adequately  conceive,  the 


118  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

infinity  of  God.  Struggling  after  this,  they  spread 
themselves  over  all  space  and  time  and  substance, 
and  looking  at  the  All,  as  an  eternal  going  on  of 
spiritual  development  under  laws  of  eternal  necessity, 
they  call  it  God.  Their  God  is  the  largest  thought 
they  can  raise ;  largest,  that  is,  in  extent,  and  con- 
taining boundary,  but  he  is  no  person.  Personality 
has  been  lost  in  the  struggle  after  magnitude,  or  rather 
it  has  been  actually  dismissed  as  untenable ;  because 
the  word,  logically  treated  and  literally  taken,  presents 
God  under  conditions  of  time  and  date,  waking  up  to 
create  worlds,  exercised  by  thoughts,  remembrances, 
reasonings,  attentions  and  affections  personal, — all 
which  is  contrary  to  the  rational  infinity  of  God.  The 
doctrine  of  God's  personality  is  therefore  deliberately 
cast  away  as  being  a  logical  and  necessary  limit  on  his 
perfection;  for  it  is  not  perceived  that  though  the 
word  person  is  finite,  it  may  yet  have  an  application 
figurative,  that  is  legitimate,  and  leaves  all  finite  im- 
plications behind,  availing  only  to  set  the  infinite  in 
terms  of  society  with  us.  The  result  is  that  God,  in 
this  rejection  of  his  personality,  becomes  a  vast  plati- 
tude ;  or  if  not  this,  a  dreary,  all-containing  abyss  ;  a 
being  unconscious,  a  fate,  a  stupendous  IT,  without 
meaning  or  value  to  our  religious  nature ;  a  theme  of 
barren  rhapsody  and  vaporing  declamation,  not  a 
friend,  not  a  redeemer,  not  an  object  of  personal 
affinity,  love  or  trust. 

Over  against  these  pantheistic  aberrations,  we  have 
the  doctrine  of  Unitarianism,  which  represents  God, 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  119 

in  opposition  to  pantheism,  as  a  being  personal,  and 
because  of  the  supposed  absurdities  or  rational  im- 
possibilities of  Trinity,  one  person.  Clearing  thus,  at 
once,  the  dearth  of  pantheism  and  the  contradictions  of 
Trinity,  it  presents  a  universal  Father,  one  person  ;  who, 
being  a  strict  indivisible  unity,  is  therefore  no  offense  or 
stumbling-block  to  reason.  The  result  is  that  the 
personality,  or  relational  state  of  God  is  saved  in  the 
completest  manner.  God  is  a  person,  a  simple 
unit  of  reason,  a  Father  eternal,  creating  and 
ruling  the  worlds  and  doing  all  things  for  the  benefit 
of  his  children.  But  the  difficulty  now  is  that  the 
dimensions  are  lost,  the  infinite  magnitude  is  practi- 
cally taken  away.  And  precisely  here,  as  was  just 
now  intimated,  is  one  of  the  grand  practical  uses  of 
Trinity.  The  Unitarians  supposed  that  when  they 
had  carried  out  their  doctrine  and  shown  that  God  is 
a  simple  unit  of  fatherhood,  they  had  gained  a  great 
point,  cleared  the  confusion,  reduced  the  absurdity, 
and  presented  to  the  world  a  being  so  lovely  in  his 
character  and  so  rational  in  his  evidence,  that  all  in- 
telligent worshipers  must  rejoice  and  the  world  itself 
must  shortly  turn  itself  to  him  in  love.  But  alas ! 
there  was  a  fatal  difficulty  which  they  did  not  sus- 
pect, and  which  time  only  could  reveal ;  viz.,  that  in 
going  on  to  assert  the  one  God,  always  under  the 
same  figure  of  personality,  till  that  figure  became  a 
well-nigh  literal  affirmation,  the  dimensions  of  God 
would  be  reduced  to  the  measures  of  the  human  figure, 
and  their  one  God,  their  Great  Father,  would  be  a 


120  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

name  without  magnitude  or  any  genuine  power  of 
impression.  We  do  not  of  course  mean,  when  we  thus 
speak,  to  imply  that  the  Unitarian  will  become  any 
the  less  a  believer  theoretically  in  the  infinity  of  God ; . 
or  that  he  will  not  save  himself  from  the  letting  down  ' 
process,  in  a  degree,  by  the  great  tokens  of  power  and 
majesty  he  will  trace  in  the  worlds  of  matter,  and  the 
adjectives  he  will  set  about  the  name  of  God,  such  as 
eternal,  infinite,  all-present,  all-seeing,  all-powerful, 
the  Creator,  Governor,  Judge  of  the  worlds.  All  this 
he  will  do,  and  yet  for  some  reason,  he  may  not  guess 
what  the  reason  is,  he  will  be  conscious  of  a  certain 
decay  of  impression,  a  diminution  of  tonic  force  in 
the  idea  of  God,  such  as  once  it  had  before  he  broke 
loose  from  the  absurdities  of  Trinity ;  or  above  all, 
such  as  he  discovers  in  the  writings  and  history  of 
his  fathers,  before  they  broke  loose  and  led  their  chil- 
dren out,  as  they  supposed,  in  the  paths  of  intelli- 
gence and  reason.  An  impression  will  finally  begin 
to  crowd  upon  him  that  there  is,  after  all,  something 
in  the  Trinitarian  feeling  not  in  his ;  that  their  God 
is  more  a  God,  higher  in  majesty,  and  heavier  on  the 
soul's  feeling.  And  the  sense  of  this  fact  will  by  and 
by  appear  in  other  and  more  decisive  indications ;  as 
when,  for  example,  poets,  essayists,  and  nominally 
Christian  teachers  brought  up  in  his  doctrine,  begin 
to  be  heard  speaking  in  a  heathenish  and  mock-classic 
way  of  Hhe  godsJ^  They  will  do  it  because  their 
God,  their  one  person  or  Father,  has  somehow  lost 
magnitude   in  their  impressions,  and  because  there 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  121 

seems  to  be  really  more  rhetorical  power  in  the  plural 
"^oc?s,"  than  there  is  in  their  boasted  unity-of -reason 
God. 

It  could  not  be  otherwise.  How  is  it  possible  to 
keep  up  the  figure  of  a  one  personality,  and  be  always 
seeing  God  under  that  figure,  without  finally  dragging 
him  down  by  the  force  of  its  finite  associations,  and 
subjecting  him  practically  to  its  measures  ?  Suppose 
that  by  reason  of  some  analogy  discovered  in  the 
rock,  God  were  always  called,  as  he  is  a  few  times  in 
the  Scriptures,  "  The  Rock,"  and  conceived  under  no 
other  name,  does  any  one  doubt  that  such  an  image 
would,  by  its  natural  associations,  finally  obdurate  or 
harden,  and  in  that  manner  radically  vitiate,  the  con- 
ception of  God's  character  ?  He  was  familiarly 
known  to  the  ancient  race  as  the  "  Jehovah-angel " ; 
i.  e.,  a  visitor  appearing  in  the  human  form  to  repre- 
sent and  speak  for  God.  Suppose  then  he  had  always 
been  called  The  Angel,  never  conceived  in  any  other 
way,  how  plain  is  it  that  lie  would  be  gradually  let 
down  to  the  grade  of  an  apparition  coming  and  going 
and  acting  in  space  !  What  then  must  follow  when 
he  is  spoken  of  and  worshiped  only  in  the  type  of  a 
person,  which  is  nothing  but  a  metaphysically  finite 
conception  ?  One  good  point  is  gained,  viz.,  the 
mutuality,  the  reciprocal  relationship  of  God ;  but 
with  that  everything  necessary  to  the  grandeur,  the 
transcendent  wonder,  the  immeasurable  vastness  of 
God,  is  lost  or  left  behind. 

Setting  now  these  two  failures  against  one  another, 


122  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

the  failure  of  pantheism  and  the  faihire  of  Unitarian- 
ism,  we  perceive  exactly  what  is  the  problem  answered 
by  the  Christian  Trinity.  By  asserting  three  persons 
instead  of  one,  and  also  instead  of  none,  it  secures  at 
once  the  practical  infinity,  of  God  and  the  practical 
personality  of  God.  By  these  cross  relations  of  a 
threefold  grammatic  personality,  the  mind  is  thrown 
into  a  maze  of  sublimity,  and  made  to  feel  at  once 
the  vastness,  and  with  that  the  close  society  also,  of 
God.  He  is  not  less  personal  than  he  would  be  under 
the  one  personality  of  Unitarianism,  and  is  kept 
meantime,  by  the  threefold  personality,  from  any 
possible  diminution  under  the  literal  measures  of  the 
figure ;  for  God  cannot  become  either  one  person  or 
three,  in  any  literal  sense,  when  steadfastly  held  as 
both. 

In  this  respect,  the  Trinity,  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,  practically  accepted  and  freely  used,  with 
never  a  question  about  the  speculative  nature  of  the 
mystery,  with  never  a  doubt  of  God's  rigid  and  per- 
fect unity,  will  be  found  to  answer  exactly  the  great 
problem  of  the  practical  life  of  religion ;  viz.,  how  to 
keep  alive  the  profoundest,  most  adequate  sense  of 
God's  infinity,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  most  vivid 
and  intensest  sense  of  his  social  and  mutual  relation- 
ship as  a  person.  And  this,  if  I  am  right,  is  more  to 
say  than  could  be  said  of  any  other  known  or  possible 
denomination  for  God.  Regarded  simply  as  a  liter- 
ary exploit,  if  that  were  all,  it  is  at  once  the  profound- 
est practical  expedient  ever  adopted,  and  the  highest 
wonder  ever  accomplished  in  human  language. 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  123 

Many  persons  talk  and  reason  of  this  matter,  as  if 
it  were  the  easiest,  most  extempore  thing  in  the  world, 
to  make  a  valid  and  true  communication  of  God,  not 
considering  either  the  hard  limitations  of  language, 
or  the  more  stringent  limitations  of  a  finite  creature's 
thought.  In  this  radical  and  somewhat  feeble  assump- 
tion, we  have  the  beginning  of  the  Unitarian  attempt ; 
as  if  it  were  nothing,  could  involve  no  mystery,  no 
paradox,  to  give  expression  to  the  infinite  God !  Who 
that  can  take  Zophar's  thought  of  his  incomprehensi- 
ble, inconceivable  majesty  :  '^  Canst  thou  by  searching 
find  out  God  ?  canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  per- 
fection ?  It  is  as  high  as  heaven,  what  canst  thou  do  ? 
deeper  than  hell,  what  canst  thou  know  ?  The  meas- 
ure thereof  is  longer  than  the  earth  and  broader  than 
the  sea";  who,  we  ask,  that  can  take  up  such  a 
thought  of  God,  will  have  it  for  a  perfectly  easy  and 
simple  matter  to  present  such  a  being  to  the  world  ? 
Far  more  equal  and  fit  to  the  true  import  of  the 
problem  was  the  answer  of  that  wise  heathen  who, 
when  it  was  required  of  him  to  give  the  definition  of 
God,  demanded  a  certain  time  for  thbught,  and  when 
the  time  expired,  double  the  time,  and  then  again  the 
double  of  that,  till  at  last,  by  so  many  delays,  he  had 
given  the  most  expressive  and  truest  answer  possible ; 
declaring  in  that  manner,  the  sense  he  had  of  God's 
inscrutable,  inconceivable  mystery.  Who  that  has  a 
mind  really  opened  to  the  dfficulties  of  the  subject, 
will  not  see  beforehand,  that  when  such  a  being  com- 
municates himself  to  the  world,  nothing  will  serve 


124  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

his  object  but  some  wondrous  compilation  of  appar- 
ently conflicting  and  paradoxical  images, — such  ex- 
actly as  we  have  in  the  Christian  Trinity  ?  The  very 
mystery,  and  all  the  conflicting  terminology  which 
the  Unitarians  undertook  to  clear  and  logically  re- 
duce, had  even  a  presumption  in  their  favor.  And  the 
new  explication  they  attempted  of  these  absurdities 
of  Scripture,  their  "  Truth  made  Simple,"  it  was  even 
as  clear  beforehand  as  it  could  be  afterwards,  would 
be  only  a  substitution  of  the  little  for  the  great,  the 
feeble  for  the  sublime,  a  merely  childish  half-truth 
for  the  grand,  A\^ell-rounded  majesty  of  the  triune 
formula.  Nothing  is  easier  than  the  method  of  a 
"Norton's  Reasons;"  and  when  implicitly  followed, 
nothing  will  more  certainly  show  the  problem  resolved, 
how  it  may  be  possible,  with  only  a  moderate  force, 
drudged  in  the  ploddings  of  unilluminated  scholar- 
ship, to  empty  a  Gospel  most  effectually  of  all  that  is 
necessary  to  its  life.  It  is  no  difficult  task  to  make 
God  intelligible,  and  set  him  clear  of  all  terms  that 
stagger  comprehension ;  and  then,  when  it  is  done,  it 
is  not  less  easy  to  find  that  he  is  just  as  much  dimin- 
ished as  he  is  more  completely  leveled  to  the  logical 
understanding.  Withdrawn  from  the  imagination  and 
reduced  to  the  measures  of  logical  practice,  he  will 
be,  in  fact,  to  the  true  Almighty  Infinite  God,  what 
the  wax-doll  Napoleon  is  to  the  mysterious  living  para- 
dox of  genius,  before  whose  name  and  coming  the 
nations  shook  with  dread. 

Regarding  the  grammatic  plurality,  or  three  per- 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  125 

sons,  as  a  necessary  means,  in  this  manner,  of  pre- 
serving at  once  the  personality  and  practical  infinity 
of  God,  we  ought  perhaps  to  notice  what  is  really  a 
striking  confirmation  of  our  suggestion,  that  the  Old 
Testament  word  commonly  translated  God,  MoJmn, 
is  a  plural  word.  Over  this  word,  particularly  as  it 
occurs  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  in  connection 
with  the  phrase,  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image," 
there  has  been  a  good  deal  of  frivolous  and  imperti- 
nent debate ;  frivolous  and  impertinent  of  necessity, 
because  the  question  raised,  whether  these  pluralities 
are  not  affirmations  of  Trinity,  is  a  fictitious  and 
wholly  unscholarly  question.  Tlie  true  question  is 
different,  viz.,  what  is  the  reason,  for  some  reason 
there  certainly  was,  why  this  plural  name  occurs  and 
becomes  accepted  as  the  name  of  God  ?  Such  a  ques- 
tion opens  up,  it  will  be  seen,  a  previous  history  in  the 
word,  conducting  us  back  upon  the  great  natural  fact, 
that  plurality  is  a  form  of  instrumentation  for  God 
or  the  divine  nature,  quite  as  readily  received  and 
for  some  purposes  more  adequate  than  a  simple  gram- 
matic  unity.  In  this  respect,  the  plural  name  of  the 
Old  Testament  answered  some  of  the  important  condi- 
tions of  the  Trinity  of  the  New.  The  pluralities  intro- 
duced by  means  of  the  Jehovah  Angel,  the  Memra  or 
Word  of  the  Lord,  and  by  such  uses  or  conceptions  of 
the  Holy  Spirit  as  we  find  in  the  51st  Psalm,  show  also 
in  what  manner  the  advantages  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment Trinity  are  made  up  in  the  Old  by  another 
process,  if  indeed  it  is  another,  which  many  will  deny. 
We  pass  now, 


126  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

II.  To  another  view  of  the  Christian  Trinity,  in 
which  it  is  seen  to  have  a  practical  relation  to  our 
character  and  our  state  as  sinners.  Here  it  is  the  in- 
strument and  co-efficient  of  a  supernatural  grace  or 
redemptive  economy.  Not,  as  we  sometimes  hear, 
that  an  infinite  atonement  is  wanted,  which  none  but 
an  infinite  and  divine  person  could  execute.  That  is 
only  a  very  crude  and  distant  approximation  to  the 
truth.  The  need  we  are  here  to  discover  is  broader 
and  more  comprehensive,  resting  in  the  fact  that 
God's  universal  economy  is,  in  its  very  conception, 
twofold ;  comprising  at  one  pole,  an  economy  of  na- 
ture, and  at  the  other,  an  economy  of  supernatural 
grace ;  requiring,  in  order  to  an  easy  practical  adjust- 
ment of  our  life  under  it,  a  twofold  conception  of  God 
that  corresponds ;  for  which  reason  the  Scripture 
three  are  sometimes  spoken  of  by  Calvin  and  others, 
as  composing  an  economic  Trinity. 

In  the  department  of  nature,  we  discover,  as  we 
think,  a  realm  of  complete  systematic  causation.  All 
events  proceed  in  right  lines  of  invariable  sequence 
under  fixed  laws.  But  as  laws  are  only  another  name 
for  God's  will,  or  the  action  of  forces  representing 
his  will,  the  system  of  nature  becomes  a  symbol  in  its 
whole  development  of  the  regulative  mind  of  God. 
What  we  call  the  natural  consequences  are  determina- 
tions of  that  mind  in  the  same  manner.  In  this  view 
it  will  be  seen  that,  if  the  universal  economy  included 
'  nothing  but  nature,  the  single  term  or  conception  Grod 
would  answer  all  our  necessary  uses.  So  far  there 
would  be  no  discoverable  economic  need  of  Trinity. 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  127 

But  the  universal  economy  is  larger  and  contains, 
of  necessity,  another  and  partially  contending  factor, 
supernaturalism,  even  as  the  balance  of  the  firma- 
ment is  settled  between  two  natural  factors  or  forces 
always  contending  with  each  other.  Nature  is  a  realm 
so  adjusted  that,  whenever  any  moral  agent  or  race  of 
agents  casts  off  the  law  moral,  a  train  of  natural 
consequences  forthwith  takes  them  in  hand  for  disci- 
pline or  retribution.  The  action  begun  is  that  of  dis- 
ease, disorder,  pain,  constituting  wliat  is  fitly  called  a 
fall.  The  penal  train  is  a  run  of  justice,  and  tlie  run 
is  doAvnward  even  forever  ;  for  it  is  inconceivable  that 
disorder  should  ever  of  itself  beget  order.  As  little  is  it 
to  be  conceived  that  we,  who  have  broken  up  the  ideal 
harmony  of  nature  by  starting  a  malignant  and  dis- 
eased action,  should  be  able  to  will  it  back  into  a  state 
of  perfection  or  ideal  order,  which  we  cannot  even 
conceive.  To  provoke  and  raise  up  nature  was  one 
thing ;  to  smooth  and  restore  it,  another.  Nothing 
but  a  force  supernatural  can  restore  the  mischief,  and 
without  that  any  thought  of  our  own  self-clearance 
and  self-preparation  for  a  state  of  perfected  health 
and  felicity  is  even  absurd. 

Inasmuch  then,  as  the  spiritual  training  of  a  race 
of  free  moral  agents  included  the  certain  fact  of  their 
sin,  there  was,  we  perceive,  a  grand  prior  necessity 
that,  if  they  are  to  have  any  advantage  in  existence, 
the  scheme  of  God's  economy  should  comprehend  two 
factors,  nature  and  the  supernatural.  And  this  again 
is  the  same,  it  will  be  seen,  as  to  say  that  God  will 


128  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

institute  and  actuate  two  realms  of  forces,  a  kingdom 
of  nature  and  a  kingdom  of  grace ;  for  as  we  have 
seen  that  nature  is  the  presiding  will  of  God,  so  also 
must  the  supernatural  be  ;  and  then,  the  perfection  or 
completeness  of  God's  economy  will  consist  in  the 
orderly  comprehension  of  both,  under  harmonizing 
principles  of  law  and  reason  which  are  clear  to  him, 
but  only  imaginable  to  us. 

And  now  the  question  is,  conceiving  that  we  are  in 
the  state  of  retributive  disorder  to  be  recovered  from 
it,  related  thus  to  God  as  the  Head  of  the  two  econo- 
mies, and  having  our  salvation  to  seek  under  their 
joint  action,  how  we  shall  be  able  to  conceive  God  in 
any  manner  that  will  set  him  continually  in  this  two- 
fold relation  towards  us.  If  we  have  only  the "  single 
term  God,  then  we  must  speak  of  God  as  dealing 
with  God,  contending  with  the  causations  of  God,  the 
grace-force  of  God  delivering  from  the  nature-force  of 
God.  If  the  work  includes  an  incarnation,  as  we 
suppose  it  must  of  necessity,  then  it  must  be  God 
sending  God  into  the  world.  Or,  if  it  includes  a 
renovating  spirit  witliin,  then  we  go  to  God  to  give 
us  God,  and  expect  that  God  within  will  graciously 
master  the  retributive  causations  of  God  within ;  all 
of  which,  as  we  may  see,  is  a  conception  too  clumsy 
and  confused  to  serve,  at  all,  the  practical  necessity 
of  our  state.  There  is,  in  short,  no  intellectual 
machinery  in  a  close  theoretic  monotheism  for  any 
such  thing  as  a  work  of  grace  or  supernatural  re- 
demption.    We  should  even  say  beforehand,  that  no 


A     PRACTICAL     TRUTH.  129 

such  tiling  can  ever  be  ;  for  how  can  God  rescue  from 
Ills  own  causes  and  open  a  way  through  his  own  retri- 
Ijutions  ?  Accordingly,  it  will  be  observed  that  where 
this  Unitarian  conception  is  held,  there  is  also  dis- 
covered  an  almost  irresistible  tendency  to  naturalism, 
and  so  to  a  loss  or  dying  out  of  all  that  distinctively 
constitutes  the  gospel.  God  is  the  king  of  nature, 
and  nature  is  the  inclusive  name  of  all  that  consti-. 
tutes  his  dominion.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  legitimate 
place  for  anything  but  nature.  Sin  is  softened, 
depra\'ity  ignored.  Nature  is  conceived  to  be  ideally 
perfect  and  the  palpable  disorders  and  deformities  of 
the  world  are  not  regarded,  in  the  admiration  offered 
to  its  beauty.  The  gospel  is  education  and  the  run  of 
life  is  a  course  of  development  in  right  lines,  without 
a  reversal  or  new  creation  of  anything.  Indeed,  there 
is  no  alternative  but  to  say,  as  some  are  obliged  in 
fidelity  to  their  scheme  itself  to  do,  and  have  not 
shrunk  from  doing,  that  if  we  are  saved  at  all,  we 
must  be  saved  by  justice  or  the  natural  law  of  retri- 
bution. 

Now  there  is,  we  have  already  intimated,  a  higher 
and  more  comprehensive  view  of  God's  universal 
kingdom,  in  which  it  includes  and  harmonizes  these 
two  economies,  viz.,  nature  and  the  supernatural,  and 
by  these  two  factors,  like  the  contending  forces  of 
astronomy,  settles  and  adjusts  its  orbit.  And  the 
Christian  Trinity  gives  us  a  conception  of  God  which 
exactly  meets  such  a  truth,  leveling  it  always  to  the 
practical  uses  of  our  life. 


130  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

Using  the  term  God  sometimes  in  a  sense  broad 
enough  to  comprehend  all  the  complexities  of  his 
kingdom,  we  are  able,  when  we  need  such  aid  for  the 
practical  accommodation  of  our  faith,  to  lay  hold  of 
relational  terms  that  exactly  represent  the  two  econo- 
mies in  their  action  with  and  upon  each  other.  First, 
we  have  the  term  Father,  which  sets  him  before  us  as 
the  king  of  nature,  the  author  and  ground  of  all 
existent  things  and  causes.  Next,  we  have  the  Son 
and  the  Spirit,  which  represent  the  supernatural ;  the 
Son  coming  into  nature  from  above  nature,  incarnate 
in  the  person  of  Jesus,  by  a  method  not  in  the  com- 
pass of  nature,  erecting  a  kingdom  in  the  world  that 
is  not  of  the  world ;  the  Spirit  coming  in  the  power 
of  the  Son,  to  complete,  by  an  inward  supernatural 
working,  what  the  Son  began  by  the  address  he  made 
without  to  human  thought,  and  the  forces  he  im- 
ported into  nature  by  his  doctrine,  his  works,  his  life 
and  his  death. 

Having  now  these  terms  or  denominations  provided, 
we  use  them  freely  in  their  cross  relations,  as  a  ma- 
chinery accommodated  to  our  sin  and  the  struggles  of 
our  faith ;  putting  our  trust  in  the  Son  as  coming 
down  from  God,  offering  himself  before  God,  going 
up  to  God,  interceding  before  God,  reigning  with  God, 
by  God  accepted,  honored,  glorified,  and  allowed  to 
put  all  things  under  his  feet ;  invoking  also  God  and 
'  Christ  to  send  down  the  Spirit,  and  let  him  be  the 
power  of  a  real  indwelling  life,  coursing  through  our 
nature,  breathing  health  into  its  diseases,  and  so  roll- 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  131 

ing  back  the  penal  currents  of  justice  to  set  us  free. 
Having  these  for  the  instruments  of  our  thought  and 
feeling  and  faith  towards  God,  and  suffering  no  fool- 
ish quibbles  of  speculative  logic  to  intervene  and 
plague  us,  asking  never  how  many  Gods  there  are,  or 
how  it  is  possible  for  one  to  come  out  from  another, 
act  before  another,  take  us  from  or  to  another ;  but 
assured  of  this,  at  every  moment,  that  God  is  one  and 
only  one  forever,  however  multiform  in  his  vehicle  ; 
how  lively,  and  full,  and  blessed,  and  easy  too,  is  the 
converse  we  receive  through  these  living  personations, 
so  pliant  to  our  use  as  finite  men,  so  gloriously  ac- 
commodated to  our  state  as  sinners  ! 

Our  argument  for  the  twofold  practical  need  of  a 
Trinity,  and  the  consequent  practical  value  of  the 
Trinity  we  have,  is  now  sufficiently  stated,  and  is 
brought,  we  think,  to  a  point  of  rational  conviction 
as  decisive  as  the  nature  of  the  subject  permits.  Thus 
far,  it  will  be  remarked,  we  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  interior  mystery  of  the  divine  nature.  The  argu- 
ment amounts  to  nothing  more  than  that  God,  even 
assuming  his  strict  unity,  must  needs  be  exhibited  in 
this  way,  in  order  to  the  uses  stated.  Finding  a  cer- 
tain threefold  designation  of  God  given  out  in  the 
Christian  Scriptures,  in  which  he  is  presented,  in 
form,  as  three  personalities.  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,  we  take  up  the  subject  at  this  point  and  show 
that,  taken  as'  means  of  divine  representation,  they 
are  necessary  to  the  adequate  impression  of  God,  and 


132  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

the  practical  uses  of  a  supernatural  and  redemptive 
econom}^ 

But  the  question  will  he  raised  by  many,  at  this 
point,  whether  after  all,  there  is  anything  in  God 
answering  to  these  personalities  ?  Some  Unitarian, 
for  example,  having  followed  us  to  just  this  point  and 
admitted  the  force  of  our  argument,  may  require  to 
be  informed  wherein  the  truth  or  reality  of  the  triune 
formula  consists,  or  what  there  is  in  God's  nature  to 
support  these  personalities  of  revelation?  And  to 
this  we  might  well  enough  reply  by  handing  back  the 
question.  Having  shown  the  practical  need  of  just 
what  the  Scripture  gives,  it  is  not  therefore  specially 
incumbent  on  us  to  settle  all  other  and  deeper  ques- 
tions that  may  be  raised.  Let  him  bring  the  matter 
to  that  issue  that  will  best  satisfy  himself.  Let  him 
stop  at  Sabellianism,  if  the  air  is  not  too  thin  to  feed 
his  breath.  Or  let  him  vault  clean  over,  at  a  single 
stride  of  logic,  if  he  will,  and  rest  himself  in  the  con- 
clusion that,  since  the  three  are  persons,  there  must 
be  three  Gods,  or  a  council  of  Gods.  Enough  for  us 
that  we  have  shown  him  the  practical  need  of  the 
Scripture  Trinity. 

But  we  will  not  so  dismiss  the  question,  lest  by  an 
evasion  of  responsibility,  at  the  point  reached,  we 
may  seem  to  regard  the  Trinity  as  a  matter  only  of 
words,  and  not  in  any  proper  sense  an  eternal  fact. 
Our  impression  then  is  that  a  very  great  gain,  as  re- 
gards the  intelligent  apprehension  of  this  subject, 
will  be  made  by  simply  giving  full  place,  at  the  out- 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  1?3 

set,  to  the  admission  that  God  is  not  a  person  or  per- 
sonal being,  save  in  some  qualified  and  partly  tropical 
sense.  For  we  can  every  one  see,  at  a  glance,  that  lie 
cannot,  as  an  infinite  being,  be  comprehended  under 
any  such  finite  term  literally  taken.  And  yet  he  is  a 
person.  Who  of  us  except  a  few  speculative  panthe- 
ists, doubts  that  he  is  a  person,  or  apprehends  any 
want  of  honest  reality  or  solid  eternity  in  the  word 
when  he  is  called  a  person  ?  Doubtless  the  word  is_  a 
figure,  whether  we  have  ever  so  thought  of  it  or  not ; 
but  it  does  not  follow  that  because  it  is  a  figure,  there 
is  therefore  nothing  in  God  to  meet  and  support  the 
figure.  Precisely  in  the  same  way,  and  with  as  good 
reason,  God  may  be  a  Trinity  of  persons.  There  is 
in  fact  no  greater  difficulty  in  conceiving  God  as  three 
persons,  than  there  is  in  conceiving  him  as  one ;  for 
he  may  as  well  be  three  without  any  breach  of  his 
unity  as  one  without  any  breach  of  his  infinity. 
Indeed,  it  may  be  and  very  probably  is  true,  that  what 
we  mean  by  asserting  the  personality  of  God  is  simply 
to  predicate  of  him  that  sociality,  conversability,  or, 
to  coin  a  word  yet  more  general,  that  relationality 
which  is  verified  to  us,  and  practically  realized  in  us 
by  the  Trinity. 

However  this  may  be,  it  is  an  important  considera- 
tion, and  one  that  goes  far  to  evince  the  profound 
reality  of  the  persons,  that  as  God  in  revelation  as- 
sumes all  the  attitudes  and  acts  all  the  forms  of  per- 
sonality, so,  in  a  like  free  manner,  he  displays  a 
relative  action  of  three  persons  towards  each  otlier 
and  upon  the  world  :  God  and  with  God,  sending  and 


134  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

sent,  conversing  with,  ascending  to,  proceeding  from : 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  In  all  which  the 
Trinity  is  seen  to  be  not  a  matter  of  words  only,  but 
a  reality  of  fact  in  the  world  of  action.  So  far  at 
least,  the  case  is  clear.  What  then  shall  we  say  of 
this  tri-personality  acted  by  God?  What  account 
shall  we  make  of  it  ?  Is  it  that  God  will  accommo- 
date himself  in  this  manner  to  finite  minds  ?  That 
would  reduce  the  Trinity  to  an  occasional  matter,  a 
voluntary  expedient ;  which  would  be  a  supposition  as 
painful  and  quite  as  remote  from  all  our  most  earnest 
convictions  as  to  believe  that  his  personality  is  a 
merely  occasional  matter,  an  act  of  voluntary  accom- 
modation to  our  finite  apprehensions,  and  not  any 
part  of  his  eternal  property  or  idea. 

What  then  is  it  that  gives  us  the  impression,  when 
we  speak  of  God's  personality,  that  it  is  an  eternal 
property  in  him,  a  something  which  appertains  to  the 
divine  idea  itself  ?  It  cannot  be  that  he  exists  as  an 
infinite  substance  in  the  mold  of  our  human  person- 
ality ;  it  cannot  be  that  there  is  a  core  of  literal  per- 
sonality wrapped  up  in  his  infinite  substance.  It  is 
not  enough  that  he  acts  personality  in  a  way  of  vol- 
untary accommodation  to  men.  It  can  be  only  that 
by  some  interior  necessity^  he  is  thus  accommodated 
in  his  action  to  the  finite ;  for  what  he  does  by  the 
necessity  of  his  nature  as  truly  pertains  to  his  idea, 
and  is  as  truly  inherent  in  him,  as  if  it  were  the  form 
of  his  divine  substance  itself.  And  precisely  here  we 
come  upon  the  Nicene  Trinity.     This  and  all  the 


A     PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  135 

formulas  of  Trinity  that  assert  the  "  eternal  genera- 
tion," affirm  the  unity  of  the  persons  as  a  unity  of 
substance, — buoovaioi,  "  same  in  substance  "  ;  and  then 
regarding  the  eternal  going  on,  so  to  speak,  of  God, 
his  living  process  or  act,  actus  purissimus,  they  find 
him  eternally  threeing  himself,  or  generating  three 
persons.  These  documents  do  not  mean  that  God,  at 
some  date  in  his  almanac  called  eternity,  begat  his 
Son  and  sent  forth  his  Holy  Spirit ;  but  that  in  some 
high  sense  undefinable,  he  is  datelessly  and  eternally 
becoming  three,  or  by  a  certain  inward  necessity  be- 
ing accommodated  in  his  action  to  the  categories  of 
finite  apprehension,  adjusted  to  that  as  that  to  the 
receiving  of  his  mystery. 

This  necessary  act  of  God  is  sometimes  illustrated 
by  a  reference  to  our  necessary  action,  in  the  process 
of  consciousness.  Thus  in  simply  being  conscious, 
which  we  are,  not  by  act  of  will,  but  by  force  of 
simply  being  what  we  are,  we  first  take  note  of  our- 
selves ;  secondly,  raise  a  conception  or  thought  of 
ourselves ;  and  thirdly,  recognize  the  correspondence 
of  that  conception  with  ourselves.  And  this  we  do 
as  long  as  we  exist,  and  because  we  exist.  And  some 
have  gone  so  far  as  even  to  discover,  in  this  fact,  a 
parallel  and  a  real  explication  of  the  Trinity  of  God. 
The  illustration  is  reliable  however,  only  as  a  demon- 
stration of  the  intensely  inherent  character  of  all 
necessary  action.  Were  this  three-folding  of  con- 
sciousness a  matter  of  substance,  it  would  not  be 
more  truly  inherent  than  it  is,  regarded  as  an  act. 


186  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

If  then  we  dare  to  assume  what  is  the  deepest, 
most  adorable  fact  of  God's  nature,  that  he  is  a  being 
infinite,  inherently  related  in  act  to  the  finite,  other- 
wise impossible  ever  to  be  found  in  that  relation,  thus 
and  therefore  a  being  who  is  everlastingly  threeing 
himself  in  his  action,  to  be  and  to  be  known  as 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  from  eternity  to  eter- 
nity, we  are  brought  out  full  upon  the  Christian 
Trinity,  and  that  in  the  simple  line  of  practical  in- 
quiry itself.  It  is  nothing  but  the  doctrine  that  God 
is  a  heing  practically  related  to  his  creatures.  And  for 
just  this  reason  it  was  that  Christ,  in  the  commission 
given  to  his  disciples,  set  forth  his  formula  of  Trinity 
as  a  comprehensive  designation  for  the  gospel,  and  a 
revelation  of  the  everlasting  ground  it  has  in  the  in- 
herent properties  of  God.  He  calls  it  therein  as 
emphatically  as  possible  his  "  everlasting  gospel,"  a 
work  as  old  as  the  Trinity  of  God,  a  valid  and  credi- 
ble work,  because  it  is  based  in  the  Trinity  of  God. 
So  glorious  and  high,  and  yet  so  nigh  is  God ;  related 
in  all  that  is  inmost,  most  inherent  in  his  nature  and 
eternity,  to  our  finite  want,  and  the  double  kingdom 
of  nature  and  grace,  by  which  we  are  to  be  raised  up 
and  perfected  for  the  skies  :  a  being  who  is  at  once 
absolute  and  relational ;  an  all-containing,  all-support- 
ing Unity,  and  a  manifolding  humanly  personal  love ; 
the  All  in  all  itself,  and  yet  above  all,  through  all,  and 
in  all ;  of  whom  also,  and  through  whom,  and  to  whom 
be  glory  forever. 

How  very  distant  any  such  conception  of  the  Chris- 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  137 

tian  Trinity  may  be  from  most  persons,  Tve  are  well 
aware.  The  most  they  look  for  in  it,  is  to  find  that  it 
is  barely  defensible.  That  it  contains  the  whole 
staple  of  Christianity,  they  do  not  suspect,  and  will 
be  ready,  it  may  be,  to  set  it  down  as  a  visionary  and 
over-fond  estimate  of  its  import.  With  the  greater 
satisfaction  therefore  do  we  hail  the  expression  of  a 
deeper  and  more  adequate  conviction,  by  some  of  the 
first  minds  of  our  age ;  accepting  in  their  words,  the 
tokens  of  an  ultimate  return  of  the  world  to  a  more 
thoughtful  spirit  and  a  more  truly  Christian  impres- 
sion. Thus  Mr.  Coleridge, — and  who  has  given  a  more 
pervading  and  more  thoroughly  Christian  impulse  to 
the  English  mind  of  the  day,  than  he  ? — declares  that 
"  the  article  of  Trinity  is  religion,  is  reason,  and  its 
universal  formula ;  that  there  neither  is  nor  can  be 
any  religion,  any  reason,  but  what  is,  or  is  an  ex- 
pression of  the  truth  of,  the  Trinity."  Neander,  in 
like  manner,  and  with  a  similar  title  to  respect,  calls 
it  "  the  fundamental  article  of  the  Christian  faith ; 
and  we  recognize  therein,"  he  says,  "  the  essential 
contents  of  Christianity  summed  up  in  brief ;  *  * 
in  which  threefold  relation  the  whole  Christian 
knowledge  is  completely  announced."  (History,  vol. 
1,  p.  572. 

But  these  are  testimonies  of  opinion,  not  of  practice. 
There  is  yet  another  class  of  witnesses,  even  a  great 
cloud  of  them,  who  are  more  to  our  purpose  and  bet- 
ter authorities  than  these.  We  mean  those  living 
myriads  of  God  on  earth  and  above,  who,  apart  from 


138  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

all  scholarship  and  philosophy,  have  been  raised  to  a 
participation  of  God  so  transcendent  in  the  faith  of 
this  adorable  mystery.  Why  or  how  it  is  a  truth  they 
have  not  been  able,  and  it  may  be,  as  little  cared,  to 
find ;  for  it  had  proved  itself  to  their  experience  in 
such  a  raising  of  their  consciousness  and  a  communi- 
cation to  them  of  the  divine  nature  so  indisputably 
witnessed,  as  to  make  them  inaccessible  to  all  the 
colder  assaults  of  scepticism.  Sometimes  they  have 
stated  a  Trinity  to  which  there  have  been  abundant 
reasons  for  exception,  and  yet  they  have  found  such 
practical  virtue  in  that,  as  to  be  raised  quite  above 
the  incumbrances  added,  and  seem  even  to  have  had 
it  for  a  part  of  their  joy  to  see  how  the  fires  of  their 
faith  could  burn  up  all  the  chaff  of  their  head.  The 
wise  ones  of  the  church  and  the  speculative  schools 
sometimes  give  them  pity ;  or,  what  is  not  far  differ- 
ent, set  them  forth  as  the  weaklings  of  the  faith,  who 
make  a  virtue  of  their  ecstacies  over  what  has  been 
imposed  upon  their  superstition.  But  the  revelations 
of  eternity  will  show  who  were  weakest  and  most  on 
a  level  with  pity,  they  who  could  so  readily  fall  into 
the  abysses  of  the  divine  mystery,  or  the  wise  pre- 
tenders who  stood  questioning  over  syllables. and  refin- 
ing in  distinctions,  till  they  had  shut  away  all  mystery 
and  taken  up  for  God  a  dull  residuum  just  equal  to 
the  petty  measures  of  their  understanding. 

Could  we  bring  up  this  great  cloud  of  witnesses  and 
hear  them  speak  to  the  question  we  have  here  on 
hand ;  or  could  we  but  gather  up  the  words  in  which 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  139 

they  have  recorded  their  experience  in  the  faith,  even 
these  would  contribute  a  weight  of  evidence  to  the 
truth  we  are  asserting,  and  shed  a  glory  over  it  such 
as  to  quite  forbid  the  need  of  any  other  argTiment. 
Thus,  for  example,  we  should  hear  at  Heidelberg,  two 
centuries  and  a  half  ago,  the  distinguished  Professor 
of  divinity,  Francis  Junius,  testifying  that  he  was  in 
fact  converted  from  atheism  by  the  Christian  Trinity, 
or  by  the  sense  of  God  rolled  in  upon  his  soul  by 
means  of  that  stupendous  mystery  of  the  gospel. 
Having  fallen  into  great  looseness  of  living  and  be- 
come an  atheist  in  his  opinions,  his  Christian  father 
kindly  puts  a  New  Testament  in  his  hands,  requesting 
him  to  read  it,  and  the  result  is  that,  opening  on  a 
passage  most  of  all  likely  as  it  would  commonly  be 
supposed  to  offend  and  fortify  his  scepticism,  he  is 
visited  in  its  mysterious  and  sublime  words  by  such 
a  sense  of  God  as  overwhelms  and  instantly  stifles 
the  doubts  which  no  mere  argument  of  books  and 
treatises  had  been  able  to  remove.  He  shall  give  the 
account  in  his  own  words :  "  Here  therefore  I  open 
that  New  Testament,  the  gift  of  heaven  ;  at  first  sight 
and  without  design,  I  light  upon  that  most  august 
chapter  of  the  Evangelist  and  Apostle  St.  John.  '  In 
the  beginning  was  the  word  and  the  word  was  with 
God,  and  the  word  was  God.'  etc.  I  read  part  of  the 
chapter  and  am  so  affected  as  I  read  that,  on  a  sud- 
den, I  perceive  the  divinity  of  the  subject  and  the 
majesty  and  authority  of  the  writing,  far  exceeding 
all  human  eloquence.     I  shuddered,  was  confounded, 


140  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

and  was  so  affected  that  I  scarce  knew  myself.  Thou 
didst  remember  me,  0  Lord  my  God,  for  thy  great 
mercy,  and  didst  receive  a  lost  sheep  into  thy  flock." 
(Bayle's  Dictionary.) 

The  testimonies  of  Christian  experience  rejoicing 
in  this  truth,  are,  of  course,  more  frequent.  Thus  the 
mild  and  sober  Howe,  explaining  in  what  manner  the 
Trinity  is  to  be  connected  with  Christian  experience, 
says  coincidently  with  what  we  have  advanced  con- 
cerning the  relational  nature  of  the  fact :  "  When, 
therefore,  we  are  to  consider  God  as  related  to  us  as 
our  God,  we  must  take  in  and  bring  together  each  of 
these  notions  and  conceptions  concerning  Him ;  we 
must  take  in  the  conceptions  of  each  of  the  persons : 
'  God  the  Father,  God  the  Son,  and  God  the  Holy 
Ghost  is  my  God.'  How  admirable  a  thing  is 
this  !  How  great  and  high  thoughts  ought  we  to  have 
concerning  the  privilege  state  of  our  case  !  Indeed 
there  is  nothing  that  we  have  to  consider  of  this  God, 
or  to  look  after  the  knowledge  of,  to  answer  the 
curiosity  of  a  vain  mind,  but  everything  or  anything 
that  may  answer  the  necessity  of  a  perishing  soul. 
Whatsoever  is  requisite  to  our  real  felicity  and  blessed- 
ness, we  may  look  to  all  that  is  in  God,  as  .determined 
by  a  special  relation  unto  us."     (Works,  p.  1100.) 

Jeremy  Taylor,  holding  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
Trinity  to  be  a  truth  entirely  practical,  apprehensible 
therefore  in  its  real  evidence  only  by  experience,  says  : 
"  He  who  goes  about  to  speak  of  the  mystery  of  the 
Trinity,  and  does  it  by  words  and  names  of  man's  in- 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  141 

vention,  talking  of  essences  and  existences,  hypostases 
and  personalities,  priorities  in  coequalities,  and  unity 
in  pluralities,  may  amuse  himself  and  build  a  taberna- 
cle in  his  head,  and  talk  of  something  he  knows  not 
what ;  but  the  good  man  who  feels  the  power  of  the 
Father,  to  wdiom  the  Son  is  become  wisdom,  sanctifi- 
cation,  and  righteousness,  and  in  wdiose  heart  the 
Spirit  is  shed  abroad  ;  this  man,  though  he  under- 
stands nothing  of  what  is  unintelligible,  yet  he  alone 
truly  understands  the  Christian  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity." 

Again,  the  Marquis  de  Renty,  a  distinguished  French 
disciple  of  the  seventeenth  century,  opens  the  secret 
of  his  ow^n  living  experience  in  these  words :  "  I  bear 
in  me  ordinarily  an  experimental  verification  and  a 
plenitude  of  the  most  holy  Trinity,  which  elevates  me 
to  a  simple  view  of  God,  and  with  that  I  do  all  that 
his  providence  enjoins  me,  not  regarding  anything 
for  the  greatness  or  littleness  of  it,  but  only  the  order 
of  God  and  the  glory  it  may  render  him."  (Life  of 
De  Renty.) 

The  testimony  of  Edwards,  a  man  whose  intellectual 
sobriety  and  pliilosophic  majesty  of  character  are  not 
to  be  disrespected,  corresponds :  "  And  God  has  ap- 
peared glorious  unto  me  on  account  of  the  Trinity.  It 
has  made  me  have  exalted  thoughts  of  God  that  he 
subsists  in  three  persons.  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost.  The  sweetest  joys  and  delights  I  have  expe- 
rienced have  not  been  those  that  have  arisen  from  the 
hope  of  my  own  good  estate,  but  in  a  direct  view  of 
the  glorious  things  of  the  gospel."     (Life,  p.  132-3.) 


142  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

The  celebrated  Lady  MaxTvell,  a  follower  of  Wesley, 
is  more  abundant  in  these  revelations.  She  says : 
*'  Yesterday  he  made  his  goodness  to  pass  before  me 
in  a  remarkable  manner,  while  attending  public  wor- 
ship. I  was  favored  with  a  clear  view  of  the  Trinity, 
which  I  never  had  before,  and  enjoyed  fellowship  with 
a  triune  God.  I  was  in  the  spirit  on  the  Lord's  day, 
and  felt  my  mind  fixed  in  deep  contemplation  upon 
that  glorious  incomprehensible  object,  the  ever  blessed 
Trinity.  Hitherto  I  have  been  led  to  view  the  Holy 
Ghost  chiefly  as  an  agent,  now  I  behold  him  distinctly 
as  the  third  person  of  the  Trinity.  I  have  in  my  own 
soul,  an  experimental  proof  of  the  truth  of  this  doc- 
trine, but  find  human  language  perfectly  insufficient 
for  speaking  or  writing  intelligibly  on  the  subject. 
Eternity  alone  can  unfold  the  sacred  mystery,  but  in 
the  mean  time  what  we  may  and  do  comprehend  of  it 
is  replete  with  comfort  to  the  Christian."  (Life,  p. 
258.) 

It  is  impossible  not  to  admire  the  Gospel  formula, 
that  can  so  flood  the  human  soul  in  its  narrowed  and 
blinded  state  with  the  sense  of  God,  and  raise  it  to  a 
pitch  of  blessing  so  transcendent.  The  amazing  power 
of  the  Trinity,  acting  thus  on  the  human  imagination, 
and  the  contribution  thus  made  to  Christian  expe- 
rience, cannot  be  over-estimated. 

After  we  have  discovered,  in  this  manner,  how 
closely  related  the  Christian  Trinity  is  to  Christian 
experience  and  all  the  highest  realizations  of  God,  it 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  143 

will  not  be  difficult  to  account  for  the  remarkable 
tenacity  of  the  doctrine.  No  doctrine  is  more  para- 
doxical in  its  terms.  None  can  be  more  mercilessly 
tortured  by  the  application  of  a  little  logic,  such  as 
the  weakest  and  smallest  wits  are  master  of.  None 
has  been  more  often  or  with  a  more  peremptory  con- 
fidence repudiated  by  sections  of  the  church  and 
teachers  of  high  distinction.  The  argument  itself  too 
has  always  been  triumphant  regarding  the  mere  logi- 
cal result ;  for  the  fact  is  logically  absurd,  and  there 
is  no  child  who  cannot  so  handle  the  words  as  to  show 
that  no  three  persons  can  be  one.  And  yet,  for  some 
reason,  the  doctrine  would  not  die !  It  cannot  die  ! 
Once  thought,  it  cannot  be  expelled  from  the  world. 
And  this  for  the  reason  that  its  life  is  in  men's  hearts, 
not  in  their  heads.  Impressing  God  in  his  true  per- 
sonality and  magnitude,  impressing  and  communica- 
ting God  in  that  grand  twofold  economy,  by  which  he 
is  brought  nigh  to  our  fallen  state  and  accommodated 
to  our  wants  as  sinners,  showing  us  God  inherently 
related  both  to  our  finite  capacity  and  our  evil  neces- 
sity, what  can  ever  expel  it  from  the  world's  thought ! 
As  soon  shall  we  part  with  the  day-light  or  the  air  as 
lapse  into  the  cold  and  feeble  monotheism  in  which 
some  teachers  of  our  time  are  ready  to  boast  as  the 
Gospel  of  reason  and  the  unity  of  a  personal  father- 
hood !  No  !  This  corner-stone  is  not  to  be  so  easily 
removed.  It  was  planted  before  the  foundation  of  the 
world,  and  it  will  remain.  It  is  eternally  woven  into 
the  practical  economy  of  God's  kingdom,  and  must 


144  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

therefore  stand  firm.  Look  up,  0  man !  Look  up, 
thou  sinner  in  thy  fall,  and  behold  thy  God,  eternally 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  bringing  all  his  vastness 
down  to  thy  littleness  ;  all  the  power  of  his  will  to 
release  thee  from  the  power  of  thy  will ;  acting,  mani- 
folding, circling  round  thee,  inherently  fitted,  though 
infinite,  to  thy  finite  want,  and  so  to  be  the  spring  of 
thy  benediction  forever ! 

We  are  fully  conscious  of  the  tameness  and  poverty 
of  the  illustrations  by  which  we  have  endeavored  to 
set  forth  this  greatest  of  all  subjects.  What  can  a 
mortal  say  that  is  worthy  of  this  transcendent  myste- 
ry of  God  ?  Even  if  he  should  sometime  seem  to  be 
raised  in  it  quite  above  mortality,  how  can  he  utter 
that  w^hich  is  plainly  unutterable  ?  Well  is  it  if  he 
does  not  seem  rather  to  have  blurred  than  cleared  the 
glorious  majesty  of  the  subject,  by  the  consciously 
dull  and  feeble  trivialities  he  has  offered.  Indeed  we 
could  not  dare  to  offer  a  discussion  so  far  below  the 
real  merit  of  the  theme,  were  it  not  for  the  conviction 
that  there  is  a  lower  and  feebler  inadequacy  in  our 
common  holding  of  the  theme,  from  which  it  is  scarcely 
possible  to  detract.  To  hold  this  grand  subtonic 
mystery,  in  the  ring  of  wh6se  deep  reverberation  we 
receive  our  heaviest  impressions  of  God,  as  if  it  were 
only  a  thing  just  receivable,  not  profitable ;  a  dead 
truth,  not  a  living;  a  theologic  article,  wholly  one 
side  of  the  practical  life  ;  a  truth  so  scholastic  and 
subtle  as  to  have,  in  fact,  no  relation  to  Christian 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  145 

experience  ;  nothing,  we  are  sure,  can  be  less  adequate 
than  this,  or  bring  a  loss  to  religion  that  is  more  de- 
plorable, unless  it  be  a  flat  denial  of  the  mystery 
itself.  In  this  view,  we  cannot  but  indulge  a  degree 
of  hope  that  what  we  have  been  able  to  say,  however 
insufficient  or  unequal  to  the  theme,  may  yet  have  a 
certain  value  as  a  tract  for  the  times,  raising  at  least 
a  question  of  respect  for  the  doctrine  where  it  has 
been  renounced,  starting  other  and  worthier  contem- 
plations of  it  where  it  is  received,  and  preparing  some, 
in  the  legitimate  use,  to  find  how  glorious  and  blessed 
a  gift  to  experience,  how  vast  an  opening  of  God  to 
man,  how  powerful,  transforming,  transporting,  this 
great  mystery  of  God  may  be.  We  can  wish  the 
reader  nothing  more  beatific  in  this  life  than  to  have 
found  and  fully  brought  into  feeling  the  practical 
significance  of  this  eternal  act  or  fact  of  God,  which 
we  call  the  Christian  Trinity.  Nowhere  else  do  the 
bonds  of  limitation  burst  away  as  here.  Nowhere 
else  does  the  soul  launch  upon  immensity  as  here  ; 
nowhere  fill  her  burning  censer  with  the  eternal 
fires  of  God,  as  when  she  sings, — 

One  inexplicably  three, 
One  in  simplest  unity. 

Who  that  has  been  able,  in  some  frame  of  holy 
longing  after  God,  to  clear  the  petty  shackles  of  logic, 
and  the  paltry  quibbles  of  a  world-wide  speculation, 
committing  his  soul  up  freely  to  the  inspiring  impulse 
of  this  divine  mystery  as  it  is  celebrated   in   some 


146  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

grand  doxology  of  Christian  worship,  and  has  so  been 
lifted  into  conscious  fellowship  with  the  great  celestial 
minds,  in  their  higher  ranges  of  beatitude  and  their 
1  shining  tiers  of  glory,  has  not  known  it  as  being,  at 
once,  the  deepest,  highest,  widest,  most  enkindling 
and  most  practical  of  all  practical  truths  ! 

Regarding  it  then  as  such,  it  is  only  a  part  of  the 
argument  by  which  we  undertake  to  commend  it  to 
faith  and  a  practical  use,  that  we  indicate,  in  a  few 
brief  suggestions,  the  manner  in  which  its  advantages 
may  be  most  fully  received,  and  with  fewest  draw- 
backs of  hindrance  and  perplexity. 

First  of  all,  then,  we  must  hold  fast  the  strict  unity 
of  God.  Let  there  be  no  doubt,  or  even  admitted 
question,  of  that.  Take  it  by  assumption  that  God  is 
as  truly  one  being  as  if  he  were  a  finite  person  like 
ourselves,  and  let  nothing  ever  be  suffered  to  qualify 
the  assumption ;  for  the  moment  we  begin  to  let  in 
any  such  thought,  as  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost  are  three  beings,  we  shall  be  thrown  out  of  all 
rest,  confused,  distressed,  questioning  what  and  Avhom 
to  worship,  consulting  our  prejudices  and  preferences, 
and  suffering  all  the  distractions  of  idolaters. 

Holding  firm  the  unity  in  this  manner,  use  the 
plurality  with  the  utmost  unconcern,  as  a  form  of 
thought  or  instrumental  verity,  by  which  we  are  to  be 
assisted  in  receiving  the  most  unrestricted,  fullest, 
most  real  and  sufficient  impression  of  the  One.  We 
must  have  no  jealousy  of  the  three,  as  if  they  were 
going  to  drift  us  away  from  the  unity,  or  from  reason ; 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  147 

being  perfectly  assured  of  this,  that  in  using  the  triune 
formula,  in  the  limberest,  least  constrained  way  possi- 
ble, and  allowing  the  plurality  to  blend,  in  the  freest 
manner  possible,  with  all  our  acts  of  worship,  preach- 
ing, prayer,  singing  and  adoring,  we  are  only  doing 
with  three  persons  just  what  we  do  with  one  ;  making 
no  infringement  of  the  unity  with  the  three,  more 
than  of  the  infinity  with  the  one.  Let  God  be  three 
persons  forever,  just  as  he  is  one  person  forever,  and 
as  this  latter  is  a  truth  accepted  without  difficulty  and 
held  as  the  necessary  truth  of  religion,  so  let  it  be  our 
joy  that  he  is  a  being  who  needs  for  other  purposes 
equally  dear,  to  be  and  be  thought  as  three. 

Meantime  we  must  avoid  all  practices  of  logic  on 
the  persons.  We  must  take  them  as  we  take  the  one, 
which  if  we  will  put  our  logic  on  the  term,  will 
immediately  turn  out  to  be  only  a  finite  being, — a  man. 
They  are  to  be  set  before  the  mind  at  the  outset  as  a 
holy  paradox,  that  only  gives  the  truth  in  so  great 
power  of  expression  that  it  defies  all  attempts  at 
logic  or  definition.  Seizing  thus  upon  the  living 
symbols,  we  are  to  chant  our  response  with  the  Church 
and  say :  "  God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  very  God  of 
very  God ; "  and,  if  we  cannot  reason  out  the  para- 
dox, to  like  it  the  better  that  it  stops  the  clatter  of 
our  speculative  mill-work  and  speaks  to  us  as  God's 
great  mystery  should,  leaving  us  to  adore  in  silence. 
Not  that  we  are  here  to  disown  our  reason.  God  is 
no  absurdity  as  three  persons  more  than  as  one. 
Fully  satisfied  of  this,  we  are  only  to  love  the  grand 


148  THE    CHRISTIAN    TRINITY 

abyss  of  God's  majesty  thus  set  before  us  and  rejoice 
to  fall  into  it,  there  to  bathe  and  submerge  our  finite 
love,  rejoicing  the  more  that  God  is  greater  than  we 
knew,  taller  than  our  reach  can  measui^e,  wider  than 
our  finite  thought  can  comprehend. 

Neither  will  it  do  for  us  to  suffer  any  impatience,  or 
be  hurried  into  any  act  of  presumption,  because  the 
Trinity  of  God  costs  us  some  struggles  of  thought, 
and  because  we  cannot  find  immediately  how  to  hold 
it  without  some  feeling  of  disturbance  or  distraction. 
That  is  one  of  the  merits  of  the  Trinity,  that  it  does 
not  fool  us  in  the  confidence  that  we  can  perfectly 
know  and  comprehend  God  by  our  first  thought. 
Simply  because  God  is  too  great  for  our  extempore 
and  merely  childish  comprehension,  he  ought  to  be 
given  us  in  forms  that  cost  us  labor,  and  put  us  on  a 
stretch  of  endeavor.  So  it  is  with  all  great  themes. 
The  mind  labors  and  wrestles  after  them,  and  comes 
into  their  secret  slowly.  Let  no  shallow  presumption 
turn  us  away  then  from  this  glorious  mystery,  till  we 
have  given  it  time  enough,  and  opened  to  it  windows 
enough  by  our  praises  and  prayers,  to  let  in  the  reve- 
lation of  its  glory.  Let  it  also  be  an  argument  of 
modesty  with  us,  and  a  welcome  commendation  to  our 
reverence,  that  so  many  friends  of  God  and  righteous 
men  of  the  past  ages,  such  as  bore  a  greater  fight 
than  we  and  grew  to  greater  ripeness  in  their  saintly 
w^alk,  bowed  themselves  adoringly  before  this  holy 
mystery,  and  sung  it  with  hallelujahs  in  the  worship 
of  their  temples,  in  their  desert  fastings  and  their 


A    PRACTICAL    TRUTH.  149 

fires  of  testimony.  And  as  their  Gloria  Patri,  the 
sublimest  of  their  doxologies,  is,  in  form,  a  hymn  for 
the  ages,  framed  to  be  continuously  chanted  by  the 
long  procession  of  times,  till  times  are  lapsed  in 
eternity,  what  can  we  better  do  than  let  the  wave  lift 
us  that  lifted  them,  and  bid  it  still  roll  on  !  Glory  be 
to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son,  and  to  the  Holy  Ghost, 
as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  is  now,  and  ever  shall  be, 
world  without  end.    Amen. 


V. 

SPIEITUAL  ECONOMY  OE  EEYIYALS  OF  EELIGION.^ 


We  do  not  undertake  the  vindication  of  Revivals  of 
Religion.  The  Divine  Husbandry  in  them  is  rather 
our  study.  Shall  we  mask  our  conviction  that  here  is 
a  want  which  has  long  demanded  grave  attention, — 
that  the  views  of  this  subject  entertained  by  many 
are  unripe  and  partial,  their  notions  of  Christian  in- 
strumentality confused,  and  their  practice  desultory 
to  the  same  degree  ?  The  discredit  accruing  from  this 
cause  is  really  the  heaviest  argument  that  lies  against 
revivals ;  heavier  than  all  the  attacks  of  their  adver- 
saries. Indeed,  if  we  had  it  in  hand  to  convince  the 
adversaries,  we  know  not  how  we  could  hope  more 
effectually  to  succeed,  than  by  unfolding  the  Divine 
Husbandry,  the  Reason  of  God's  Economy  in  them, — 
which  now  is  our  attempt. 

The  term  revival  of  religion  is  one  not  found  in  the 
scriptures,  and  one  to  which  we  have  decided  objec- , 
tions.     It   properly  denotes   a   reviving  of  Christian 


*First  published  in  the  GhHstian  Spectator  of  1838,  Vol.  x;  and 
in  1847  re-published  in  a  small  volume,  entitled,  "Views  of 
Christian  Nurture,  and  of  Subjects  Adjacent  thereto." 


SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY    OF    REVIVALS.      151 

piety,  where  it  has  sunk  into  decline.  We  use  it  to 
denote  a  scene  of  conversion,  of  public  exaltation  and 
victory ;  and,  what  is  even  opposite  to  its  proper 
meaning,  we  use  it  as  the  name,  not  of  a  scene  which 
is  counterpart  to  a  state  of  dishonor  in  the  church, 
but  of  something  which  belongs  inherently  to  the  gos- 
pel itself,  in  the  same  way  as  preaching  or  the  sacra- 
ments. And  then,  as  the  term  itself  is  seen  to  be  no 
accurate  measure  of  the  idea,  a  feeling  of  distrust 
arises  in  all  thinking  persons.  It  carries  an  air  of 
falsity,  which  is  undignified  and  painful  to  the  mind, 
perhaps  I  should  rather  say  an  air  of  crudity  or 
superstition,  as  if  cant  were  substituted  for  intelli- 
gence. Or  if  it  is  heartily  accepted,  the  more  proba- 
ble is  it  that  faith  embraces  some  portion  of  error,  and 
earnestness  exults  in  a  smoke  of  mental  confusion. 
For  words  are  powerful  instruments,  and  false  words 
can  never  be  used  without  danger ;  they  mislead  the 
action  even  of  philosophic  minds,  much  more  of  those 
who  never  think  at  all.  Still  the  term  revival  has 
found  a  current  use,  and  convenience  will  perhaps 
give  it  perpetuity.  In  this  article  we  submit  to  the 
term,  only  endeavoring,  since  it  cannot  be  avoided,  to 
measure  and  guard 'its  import. 

This  not  being  done,  and  the  real  position,  if  any, 
which  revivals  hold  in  the  economy  of  God's  spiritual 
administration  not  being  well  ascertained  by  the 
Christian  body,  they  are  viewed  by  Christians  them- 
selves, with  all  the  possible  varieties  of  feeling  be- 
tween  idolatry  and  distrust.     Even  the  same  mind 


152  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

often  fluctuates  between  these  extremes.  To-day,  the 
face  of  God  is  bright  upon  his  people,  and  the  whole 
community  is,  in  a  sense,  visibly  swayed  by  his  power; 
and  now,  in  the  happy  freshness  and  vitality  of  the 
scene,  it  is  concluded  that  there  is  no  true  religion 
but  in  a  revival.  To-morrow,  as  the  freshness  of  new 
scenes  and  new  feelings  is  manifestly  abating,  there 
begins  to  be  an  unhappy  and  desperate  feeling ;  some- 
thing must  be  done ;  religion  itself-  is  dying.  And 
yet  what  shall  be  done,  it  is  very  difficult  to  find ;  for 
every  effort  to  hold  fast  the  exact  degree  and  sort  of 
feeling,  to  make  a  post  of  exercises,  which  in  their 
very  nature  have  motion  and  change,  only  sinks  the 
vital  force  more  rapidly.  But  the  calm  at  length 
comes,  and  now  the  prostration  is  the  greater  for  the 
desperate  outlay  of  force  used  to  prevent  it.  A  dis- 
satisfying look  begins  to  rest,  when  it  is  reviewed,  on 
the  scene  of  revival  itself ;  discouragement,  unbelief, 
sloth, — a  long  age  of  lead  follows.  Secretly  sickened 
by  what  is  past,  many  fall  into  real  distrust  of  spiritual 
experiences.  Many  have  made  so  heavy  a  draft  on 
their  religious  vitality  or  capacity,  that  something 
seems  to  be  expended  out  of  the  sensibility  even  of 
their  conscience :  they  sink  into  neglects,  or  crimes 
close  upon  the  verge  of  apostasy ;  or  they  betake 
themselves  to  the  cheap  and  possible  perfectionism  of 
antinomian  irresponsibilit}'.  The  extreme  we  here 
depict  is  not  often  reached ;  but  there  is  very  often  a 
marked  approach  towards  it.  The  consequence  is, 
that  the  religious  life,  thus  unskillfully  ordered,  is  un- 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  153 

happy,  wears  a  forced  look,  goes  with  a  perplexed  and 
lialting  gait. 

Our  present  aim,  then,  is  to  ascertain  the  real  office 
and  position  of  revivals, — to  furnish,  if  possible,  a 
view  of  them  which  may  be  safely  held  at  all  times, 
and  must  be  so  held,  if  any  steady  and  intelligent 
conduct  in  these  matters  is  to  be  secured.  We  hope 
to  establish  a  higher  and  more  solid  confidence  in  re- 
vivals, and  at  the  same  time,  to  secure  to  the  cause  of 
evangelical  religion  a  more  natural,  satisfactory,  and 
happy,  as  well  as  a  more  constant  movement. 

They  are  grounded,  we  shall  undertake  to  show, 
both  in  honor  and  in  dishonor.  They  belong  in  part 
to  the  original  appointment  and  plan  of  God's  moral 
administration,  in  which  part,  they  are  only  modes  or 
varieties  of  divine  action,  necessary  to  our  renewal 
and  culture  in  the  faith.  For  the  remainder,  they 
are  made  necessary  by  the  criminal  instability  of  God's 
people,  or  take  their  extreme  character  from  unripe 
or  insufficient  views  in  their  subjects  and  conductors. 
The  two  sides  of  the  subject,  thus  stated,  will  require 
to  be  prosecuted  separately. 

If  we  are  to  show  revivals  of  religion  in  place,  as 
a  geologist  might  say,  or  as  they  stand  related  to  the 
general  system  of  God's  works,  purposes,  and  ends,  we 
need,  first  of  all,  to  show  in  place  the  doctrine  itself 
of  spiritual  agency.  In  speaking  of  the  divine  agency 
in  men,  we  are  obliged  to  use  many  and  various  figures 
of  speech,  by  way  of  giving  sufficient  vividness  and 


154  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

practical  life  to  the  truth,  to  make  it  answer  its  moral 
ends.  We  speak  of  the  Spirit  of  God  as  "  descending," 
or  "  coming  down,"  or  "  sent  down,"  as  "  poured  out," 
as  "  present "  in  a  given  assembly  or  place,  as  "  grieved 
away,"  or  ''  dwelling  "  in  the  lieart  of  the  believer.  In 
all  this,  if  we  understand  ourselves,  we  only  drama- 
tize the  divine  action  with  a  view  to  give  it  reality 
and  conversableness.  But  some,  there  is  reason  to 
fear,  use  these  terms  intending  too  literally  in  them. 
They  separate  the  divine  agency  in  men,  from  tlie  gen- 
eral system  in  which  it  belongs  ;  they  make  the  doc- 
trine special  in  such  a  sense  that  God  is  himself 
desultory  in  it,  coming  and  going,  journeying  between 
the  earth  and  the  sky,  while  all  his  other  operations 
go  on  by  a  general  and  systematic  machinery  which 
takes  care  of  itself. 

The  word  of  God  sometimes  speaks  of  the  divine 
or  spiritual  agency  in  men,  as  if  it  were  only  a  new 
or  varied  extension  of  the  divine  presence,  and  uses 
the  term,  presence  as  convertible  with  Spirit.  "  Whither 
shall  I  go  from  thy  Spirit  ?  or  whither  shall  I  flee 
from  thy  presence  ?  "  "  Cast  me  not  away  from  thy 
presence;  and  take  not  thy  Holy  Spirit  from  me." 
"  When  the  times  of  refreshing  shall  come  from  the 
presence  of  the  Lord." 

Favored  by  this  example,  if  we  leave  out  of  sight 
the  distinctions  of  the  trinity,  which  we  may  for  the 
sake  of  greater  simplicity  in  our  subject,  we  shall 
readily  see,  that  tlie  doctrine  of  spiritual  agency  is 
grounded  in  the  simple  doctrine  of  God's  omnipres- 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  155 

ENCE.  Here  it  is  in  place.  Of  this,  in  fact,  it  is  only 
a  member. 

What  do  we  mean  by  God's  omnipresence  ?  If  we 
speak  intelligently,  not  the  extension,  not  the  local 
diffusion  of  the  divine  substance.  We  mean,  nega- 
tively, that  we  can  conceive  of  no  place  above  God's 
works  or  outside  of  them,  where  the  divine  nature 
resides ;  there  is  no  such  place.  We  are,  therefore, 
obliged  to  think  of  God  as  in-resident  in  his  works. 
Next  we  mean,  positively,  that  God  is  potentially 
present,  present  in  act  and  sway  (whatever  may  be  true 
of  his  substance,  or  of  its  relations  to  space,)  filling 
all  things.  The  most  ready  illustration  of  this  sub- 
ject is  the  soul  residing  in  the  body.  In  what  precise 
organ  its  throne  is  we  know  not ;  but  virtually  or 
energetically,  it  is  all  in  every  part.  It  is  there  to 
perceive,  to  have  control  and  use,  and  it  is  one  will 
Avhich  actuates  and  systematizes  the  action  of  all  the 
parts  together. 

Let  it  not  offend,  that  we  reduce  the  warm  and 
glowing  doctrine  of  the  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to 
mere  cold  omnipresence.  But  rather  let  some  just 
degree  of  warmth  be  given  to  the  latter, — a  doctrine 
chilled  by  the  stagnant  unbelief,  and  the  more  stag- 
nant philosophy  of  men.  The  true  notion  of  omni- 
presence shows  God  in  action  everywhere,  as  much  as 
in  the  matters  of  grace.  He  is  in  all  things,  not 
simply  as  staying  in  them,  perchance  asleep ;  but  he 
is  in  them  by  a  presence  of  power,  design,  and  feeling; 
moving  all,  advancing  in  all,  towards  his  great  ap- 


156  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

pointed  ends.  God  is  not  entombed  in  his  works. 
That  vital  touch,  which  the  bier  felt  and  sent  into  the 
quickened  youth,  touches  all  things  and  they  live  unto 
God.  Forms  are  his  pliant  investiture.  Laws  are 
the  currents  of  his  will,  flowing  towards  the  ends  of 
his  reason.  The  breast  of  universal  nature  glows 
with  his  warmth.  It  enlivens  even  the  grave,  and  the 
believer's  flesh,  feeling  the  Lord  of  the  resurrection 
by,  resteth  in  hope.  When  we  reduce  the  work  of  the 
Spirit  then  in  man,  to  a  branch  of  the  divine  omni- 
presence, we  seem,  on  the  other  part,  to  hear  the 
eternal  voice  lift  up  itself  to  the  worlds  also,  the 
forms,  the  forces,  and  thunder  their  holy  inaugural 
through  the  burnished  pillars  of  the  universe,  sa3dng : 
"  Know  ye  not  that  ye  are  the  temple  of  God,  and 
that  the  Spirit  of  God  dwelleth  in  you  "  ? 

But  observe  more  distinctly,  the  doctrine  of  God's 
omnipresence  does  not  affirm  that  he  is  present  to  all 
things  in  the  same  sense.  Presence  being  identical 
with  act  and  sway,  it  has  of  course  this  law  in  itself, 
that  God  is  present  to  each  thing  according  to  what 
it  is,  and  according  to  what  he  is  doing  with  it.  Thus 
he  is  present  to  matter  as  matter  and  not  as  mind, 
molding  its  forms,  constructing  its  incidents.  To 
vegetable  natures  he  is  present  according  to  what  they 
are,  and  according  to  their  several  growths  and  kinds. 
So  to  a  man  he  is  present  as  animate  in  body,  in  spirit 
an  image  of  himself.  If  a  man  falls  into  sin,  he  is 
then  present  to  him  as  a  sinner,  offended  by  his  trans- 
gressions and  averse  to  his  character.     If  he  under- 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  157 

takes  to  redeem,  he  is  then  present  as  prosecuting 
such  an  object ;  convincing  of  sin,  righteousness,  and 
a  judgment  to  come.  And  now,  if  any  one  is  brought 
to  repentance,  God  is  present  to  him  in  a  still  more 
intimate  and  glorious  way.  In  all  the  orders  of 
created  being  before  named,  God  has  found  nothing  to 
reciprocate  his  moral  feelings ;  but  here  he  finds 
something  which  suits  and  sympathizes  with  his  joys, 
his  principles,  his  whole  spirit.  Here  his  holiness  en- 
ters into  a  resting-place  and  a  congenial  hospitality. 
He  calls  it  his  home,  his  palace,  his  sanctuary,  and 
there  he  dwells,  bestowing  the  cherishments  of  a  God 
in  friendship.  This,  by  way  of  eminence,  is  called 
the  indwelling  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  here  the  great 
law  of  omnipresence  still  pertains, — God  is  present  to 
believers  according  to  their  character,  their  times, 
their  works,  their  wants,  and  the  great  result  he  pur- 
poses to  bring  them  to.  We  are  to  expect,  of  course, 
that  there  will  be  great  variety  in  the  manner  of  his 
presence,  or,  what  is  the  same,  in  the  kind  of  act  and 
sway  he  will  exert  in  them.  He  will  strengthen 
what  is  good,  fan  out  what  is  evil,  shed  peace,  impart 
knowledge  and  understanding,  invigorate  hope,  stimu- 
late, try,  purify, — in  a  word,  he  will  order  his  agency  in 
every  way  so  as  to  communicate  more  of  himself  to 
them,  and  complete  them  in  his  likeness.  So  Paul, 
contemplating  the  Spirit  in  believers  under  the  figure 
of  an  air-medium,  common,  or  present,  both  to  tlie 
divine  mind  and  to  ours,  says  :  "  the  Spirit  searcheth 
all  things,  yea,  the  deep  things  of  God."     Like  some 


158  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

• 

breath  of  wind,  which  has  passed  through  fragrant 
trees  and  banks  of  flowers,  searching  them  and  bring- 
ing grateful  flavors  of  them ;  so  the  all-present  Spirit 
ever  wafts  upon  us  the  deep  things,  the  hidden  fra- 
grance and  the  treasured  sweetness  of  the  divine 
nature. 

The  doctrine  of  divine  agency  in  men  amounts, 
then,  to  this, — that  God  is  present  to  men,  according 
to  what  they  are  and  his  purposes  in  them,  just  as  he 
is  present  to  material  natures,  according  to  what  they 
are  and  what  he  will  do  with  them.  No  man  who 
believes  in  the  divine  omnipresence,  the  universal  act 
and  sway  of  God,  can  reasonably  question  the  work 
of  the  Spirit  in  men.  So  far  from  being  any  pre- 
sumptuous claim  in  us  to  think  that  God  works  in 
us  to  will  and  to  do,  that  he  may  mold  us  unto  him- 
self, it  is  rather  presumptuous  to  question  it.  To 
believe  that  God  is  present  in  act  and  sway  to  the 
vital  functions  of  a  finger,  and  not  to  a  mind,  or  the 
character  and  welfare  of  a  mind,  is  to  reverse  all 
notion  of  justness  and  real  dignity  in  the  divine 
counsels. 

If  these  reasonings  concerning  the  doctrine  of  di- 
vine agency  are  somewhat  dry  and  abstruse  to  the 
general  reader,  it  is  yet  hoped,  that  such  as  are  more 
practiced  in  questions  of  this  sort,  will  have  a  higher 
estimate  of  their  importance.  They  enable  us  to 
enter  on  the  spiritual  economy  of  revivals  at  a  great 
advantage,  and  from  ground  high  enough  to  conamand 
the  whole  field. 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION-  159 

It  is  too  readily  conceded,  indeed  it  is  often  stoutly 
insisted  on,  even  by  those  who  may  be  called  extreme 
revivalists,  that  everything  of  a  periodical  or  tem- 
porary nature  in  religion  is,  of  course,  dishonorable 
and  suspicious.  The  adversaries  of  revivals  are 
ready,  of  course,  to  coincide.  Further,  they  are 
specially  offended,  when  it  is  claimed  that  God  exer- 
cises any  temporary  or  periodical  sway  in  men.  In 
their  view  it  is  nothing  but  a  weak  conceit,  or  the 
dream  of  a  wild  enthusiasm,  when  God  is  supposed  to 
be  specially  operative  in  the  conversion  of  men,  at 
any  particular  time  and  place,  or  in  any  single  com- 
munity. 

But  if  a  periodical  agency  be  so  derogatory  to  God's 
honor,  what  shall  be  thought  of  the  seasons,  the  in- 
tervals of  drought  and  rain,  and  all  the  revolving 
cycles  of  outward  change  ?  If  the  adversaries  of  re- 
vivals believe  in  God's  omnipresence,  is  tliere  not  a 
presence  of  act  in  all  these  things,  according  to  their 
nature  and  his  purpose  in  them,  as  there  is  supposed 
to  be  in  the  spiritual  changes  which  affect  communi- 
ties ?  On  their  principle,  nature  ought  to  perfect  her 
growths  in  the  scorchings  of  an  eternal  sun,  or  in  the 
drenchings  of  an  everlasting  rain,  and  the  flowers 
ought  to  stand,  from  age  to  age,  as  changeless  as  petri- 
factions. They  ought  to  see,  from  year  to  year,  the 
same  clouds  in  the  same  shapes  glued  fast  upon  the  sky, 
and  the  same  wind  everlastingly  exact  to  a  degree  of 
their  thermometer  ought  to  blow  upon  them.  But  no, 
nature  is  multiform  and  various  on  every  side.     She 


160  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

is  never  doing  exactly  the  same  thing,  at  one  time, 
which  she  has  done  at  another.  She  brings  forth  all 
her  bounties  by  inconstant  applications  and  cherish- 
ments  endlessly  varied.  A  single  thought  extended 
in  this  direction  were  enough,  it  would  seem,  to  show 
us  that,  while  God  is  unchangeal)le,  he  is  yet  infinitely 
various ;  unchangeable  in  his  purposes,  various  in  his 
means. 

Is  it  said  however,  that  God  acts  in  nature  by  gen- 
eral laws  ?  So  doubtless  he  does  in  the  periodical  and 
various  cultivation  of  his  Spirit.  All  God's  works 
and  agencies  are  embraced  and  wrought  into  one  com- 
prehensive system,  by  laws.  Even  miracles  them- 
selves are  credible  only  as  being,  in  some  sense,  sub- 
ject to  laws.  But  he  is  no  less  the  author  of  variety, 
that  he  produces  variety  by  system. 

Is  it  said,  that  God  produces  the  changes  of  nature 
by  second  causes  ?  Is  it  meant,  we  ask  in  reply,  to 
deny  God's  omnipresence  ?  Having  instituted  second 
causes  to  manage  for  him,  has  the  divine  nature  gone 
upon  a  journey,  or  is  it,  peradventure,  asleep  ?  Or  is 
God  still  present  (present,  remember,  by  act  and 
sway,)  inhabiting  all  changes  ?  The  notion  of  a 
second  cause  in  nature,  consistent  with  the  divine 
omnipresence, — meaning  any  thing  by  the  term, — it  is 
somewhat  difficult  to  frame.  And  as  God's  omni- 
presence is  an  undoubted  truth,  it  is  better  and  more 
philosophic  not  to  displace  it  by  one  that  is  doubtful. 

But  we  pass  on.  And  it  is  instructing  to  advert  as 
we  pass,  to  the  various  and  periodical  changes  of  tern- 


OF    REYIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  161 

perament  which  affect  men  in  other  matters  than  re- 
ligion. Sometimes  one  subject  has  a  peculiar  inter- 
est to  the  mind,  sometimes  another.  Sometimes  the 
feelings  chime  with  music,  which  again  is  not  agree- 
able. Society  of  a  given  tone  is  shunned  to-day, 
though  eagerly  sought  yesterday.  These  fluctuations 
are  epidemical  too,  extending  to  whole  communities, 
and  infecting  them  with  an  ephemeral  interest  in  va- 
rious subjects,  which  afterwards  they  themselves  won- 
der at  and  can  in  no  way  recall.  No  observing  pub- 
lic speaker  ever  failed  to  be  convinced  that  man  is  a 
being,  mentally,  of  moods  and  phases,  which  it  were 
as  vain  to  attempt  the  control  of,  as  to  push  aside  the 
stars.  These  fluctuations  or  mental  tides  are  due, 
perhaps,  to  physical  changes,  and  perhaps  not.  They 
roll  round  the  earth  like  invisible  waves,  and  the 
chemist  and  physician  tax  their  skill  in  vain  to  find 
the  subtle  powers  that  sway  us.  We  only  know  that 
God  is  present  to  these  fluctuations,  whatever  their 
real  nature,  and  that  they  are  all  inhabited  by  the 
divine  power.  Is  it  incredible,  then,  that  this  same 
divine  power  should  produce  periodical  influences  in 
the  matter  of  religion;  times  of  peculiar,  various, 
and  periodical  interest  ?  For  ourselves  we  are  obliged 
to  confess,  that  we  strongly  suspect  that  sort  of  re- 
ligion which  boasts  of  no  excitements,  no  temporary 
and  changing  states ;  for  we  observe  that  it  is  only 
towards  nothing,  or  about  nothing,  that  we  have  al- 
ways the  same  feeling. 

Need  we  say,  again,  that  progress  towards  some  end. 


162  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

which  is  the  law  of  all  God's  Avorks  and  agencies,  nec- 
essarily involves  variety  and  change.  Spring,  for  ex- 
ample, is  the  first  stage  of  a  progress.  The  newnesses, 
therefore,  of  spring,  the  first  beginnings  of  growth, 
must  wax  old  and  change  their  habit.  So  it  is  impos- 
sible that  the  first  feelings  of  religious  interest  in  the 
heart  should  remain.  There  is  a  degree  of  excitation 
in  the  strangeness  of  new  feelings,  and  so  likewise  in 
the  early  scenes  of  a  revival  of  religion,  which  belongs 
to  their  novelty,  and  which  is  by  no  means  incon- 
siderable or  improper.  Such  is  human  nature  that 
it  could  not  be  otherwise.  In  fact,  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  God,  in  framing  the  plan  or  system  of 
his  spiritual  agencies,  ordained  fluctuations  and  chang- 
ing types  of  spiritual  exercise,  that  he  might  take 
advantage,  at  intervals,  of  novelty  in  arresting  and 
swaying  the  minds  of  men.  These  are  the  spring- 
times of  his  truth,  otlierwise  in  danger  of  uniform 
staleness.  Thus  he  rouses  the  spiritual  lethargy  of 
men  and  communities  and  sways  their  will  to  himself, 
by  aid  of  scenes  and  manifestations  not  ordinary  or 
familiar.  Nor  is  it  any  thing  derogatory  to  the  divine 
agency  in  the  case,  that  the  spiritual  spring  cannot 
remain  perpetual ;  for  there  is  a  progress  in  God's 
works,  and  he  goes  on  through  change  and  multiform 
culture  to  ripen  his  ends.  Doubtless  too,  there  may 
be  a  degree  of  sound  feeling  apart  from  all  novelty, 
in  a  revival  of  religion,  which  human  nature  is  in- 
competent permanently  to  sustain ;  just  as  one  may 
have  a  degree  of  intellectual  excitement  and  intensity 


OP    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  163 

of  operation,  which  he  cannot  sustain,  but  which  is 
nevertheless  a  sound  and  healthy  activity.  In  writing 
a  sermon,  for  example,  every  minister  draws  on  a 
fund  of  excitability,  which  he  knows  cannot  be  kept 
up  beyond  a  certain  bound,  and  this  without  any 
derogation  from  his  proper  sanity. 

But  we  come  to  a  stage  in  the  subject,  where  the 
advantage  of  our  doctrine  of  spiritual  agency  is  to  be 
more  manifest.  God  has  a  given  purpose  to  execute, 
we  have  said,  in  those  who  have  entered  on  the  re- 
ligious life,  viz.,  to  produce  character  in  them.  To 
this  end  he  dwells  in  them,  and  this  is  the  object  of 
his  spiritual  culture.  And  here,  at  the  beginning,  lie 
encounters  the  general  truth,  that  varieties  of  experi- 
ence and  exercise  are  necessary  to  the  religious  char- 
acter. How  then  shall  he  adjust  the  scale  of  his 
action,  if  not  to  produce  all  such  varieties  as  are  nec- 
essary for  his  object  ?  We  have  just  remarked  on  the 
changes  of  temperament  in  men  and  communities,  by 
which  now  one,  now  another  theme  is  brought  to  find 
a  responsive  note  of  interest.  What  is  the  end  of 
this  ?  Obviously  it  is  that  we  may  be  practiced  in  all 
the  many-colored  varieties  of  feeling,  and  led  over  a 
wide  empire  of  experience.  Were  it  not  for  this,  or 
if  men  were  to  live  on  from  childhood  to  the  grave  in 
the  same  mood  of  feeling,  and  holding  fast  to  the 
same  unvarying  topic  of  interest,  they  would  grow 
to  be  little  more  than  animals  of  one  thought.  To 
prevent  which,  and  ripen  what  we  call  natural  char- 
acter to  extension  and  maturity,  God  is  ever  leading 


164  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

US  round  and  round  invisibly,  by  new  successions  of 
providence  and  new  affinities  of  feeling.  Precisely 
the  same  necessity  requires  that  religious  character 
be  trained  up  under  varieties  of  experience,  and 
shaped  on  all  sides  by  manifold  workings  of  the 
Spirit.  Now  excitements  must  be  applied  to  kindle, 
now  checks  to  inspire  caution  or  invigorate  depend- 
ence. Now  the  intellect  must  be  fed  by  a  season  of 
study  and  reflection ;  now  the  affections  freshened  by 
a  season  of  social  and  glowing  ardor.  By  one  means 
bad  habits  are  to  be  broken  up,  by  another  good  habits 
consolidated.  Love,  it  is  true,  must  reign  in  the 
heart  through  all  such  varieties  ;  but  the  principle  of 
supreme  love  is  one  that  can  subsist  in  a  thousand 
different  connections  of  interest  and  temperaments 
of  feeling.  At  one  time  it  demands  for  its  music  a 
chorus  of  swelling  voices  to  bear  aloft  its  exulting 
testimony  of  praise  ;  at  another  it  may  chime  rather 
with  the  soft  and  melancholy  wail  just  dying  on  its 
ear.  And  so,  in  like  manner,  it  needs  a  diversity  of 
times,  exercises,  duties,  and  holy  pleasures.  It  needs, 
and  for  that  reason  it  has,  not  only  revivals  and  times 
of  tranquillity,  but  every  sort  of  revival,  every  sort 
of  tranquillity.  Sometimes  we  are  revived  individ- 
ually, sometimes  as  churches,  sometimes  as  a  whole 
people,  and  we  have  all  degrees  of  excitation,  all  man- 
ner of  incidents.  Our  more  tranquil  periods  are 
sometimes  specially  occupied,  or  ought  to  be,  in  the 
correction  of  evil  habits ;  or  we  are  particularly  in- 
terested in  the  study  of  religious  doctrines  necessary 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  165 

to  the  vigor  of  our  growth  and  usefulness  ;  or  we  are 
interested  to  acquire  useful  knowledge  of  a  more 
general  nature,  in  order  to  our  public  influence,  and 
the  efficient  discharge  of  our  offices.  In  revivals  we 
generally  prefer  the  more  social  spheres  of  religious 
exercise ;  so  now  the  more  private  and  solitary  expe- 
riences may  be  cultivated.  Such  is  the  various  travail, 
which  God  has  given  to  the  sons  of  men,  to  be  exer- 
cised therewith. 

Another  end  prosecuted  by  the  Spirit,  in  his  work, 
is  the  empowering  of  the  Christian  body,  and  the 
extension  of  good,  through  them  and  otherwise,  to 
the  hearts  of  others.  Here  also  there  is  no  doubt  that 
changes  and  seasons  of  various  exercise,  like  these 
called  revivals,  add  to  the  real  power  of  the  faith. 
We  are  so  prone  to  think  nothing  of  that  which  al- 
ways wears  exactly  the  same  color  and  look,  that 
holiness  itself  needs  to  change  its  habit  and  voice  to 
command  notice,  or  impress  itself  on  the  attention. 
The  power  too  of  the  Christian  body  rests,  in  the 
main,  on  its  appearing  to  the  world  to  be  inhabited 
and  swayed  by  an  agency  above  nature.  And  this 
can  never  appear,  except  by  means  of  changes  and 
periodical  exaltations  therein.  Nature  would  make 
no  manifestation  of  him  who  dwells  in  her  forms,  if 
all  stood  motionless ;  if  the  sun  stood  fast  and  clear 
in  everlasting  noon  ;  if  there  were  no  births,  decays, 
explosions,  surprises.  Nature  is  called  the  garment  of 
the  Almighty,  but  if  there  were  no  motion  under  the 
garment,  it  would  seem  a  shroud  rather  than  a  gar- 


166  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

ment  of  life.  God  is  manifested  in  nature  by  the 
wheeling  spheres,  light,  shade,  tranquillity,  storm, — 
all  the  beauties  and  terrors  of  time.  So  the  Spirit 
will  reveal  his  divine  presence  through  the  church, 
by  times  of  holy  excitement,  times  of  reflection,  times 
of  solitary  communion,  times  of  patient  hope.  A 
church  standing  always  in  the  same  exact  posture  and 
mold  of  aspect  would  be  only  a  pillar  of  salt  in  the 
eyes  of  men ;  it  would  attract  no  attention,  reveal  no 
inhabitation  of  God's  power.  But  suppose  that  now, 
in  a  period  of  no  social  excitement,  it  is  seen  to  be 
growing  in  attachment  to  the  bible  and  the  house  of 
God,  storing  itself  with  divine  or  useful  knowledge, 
manifesting  a  heavenly  minded  habit  in  the  midst  of 
a  general  rage  for  gain,  devising  plans  of  charity  to 
the  poor  and  afflicted,  reforming  offensive  habits, 
chastening  bosom  sins, — suppose,  in  short,  that  prin- 
ciples adopted  in  a  former  revival  are  seen  to  hold 
fast  as  principles,  to  prove  their  reality  and  unfold 
their  beauty,  when  there  is  no  longer  any  excitement 
to  sustain  them ;  here  the  worth  and  reality  of  relig- 
ious principles  are  established.  And  now  let  the 
Spirit  move  this  solid  enginery  once  more  into  glow- 
ing activity,  let  the  church,  thus  strengthened,  be 
lifted  into  spiritual  courage  and  exaltation,  and  its 
every  look  and  act  will  seem  to  be  inhabited  by  a 
divine  power ;  it  will  be  as  the  chariot  of  God,  and 
before  it  even  stubbornness  will  tremble. 

We  have  spoken  already  of  the  probable  fact,  that 
God  has  designed  to  take  advantage  of  novelty  in  his 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  167 

plan  of  spiritual  action.  Quite  as  great  an  addition 
is  made  to  the  efficacy  of  his  operations,  by  the  ad- 
vantage he  takes  of  the  social  instincts  of  men. 
There  is  no  impression  which  is  not  powerfully  aug- 
mented by  participation.  What  a  community,  what 
a  crowded  assembly  feels  is  powerfully  felt.  Hence 
it  is  an  article  of  the  divine  economy  in  revivals,  that 
whole  communities  shall  be  moved  together,  as  it 
were  by  common  gales  of  the  Spirit.  The  hold  thus 
taken  of  men  is  powerful,  often  to  a  degree  even 
tremendous,  and  many  a  covenant  with  death  is  dis- 
annulled which  no  uniform  or  unvaried  tenor  of  divine 
agency,  no  mere  personal  and  private  dealing  of  the 
Spirit,  would  ever  have  shaken. 

There  is  one  more  advantage  taken  of  men  by 
periodical  or  temporary  dispensations,  in  the  very  fact 
that  they  are  temporary.  The  judgment  and  obser- 
vation of  many  who  preach  the  gospel  will  bear  us 
witness  that  the  certainty  felt  by  those  who  are  at 
any  time  enlightened  and  drawn  by  the  Spirit,  that 
they  will  not  long  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  manner 
as  now,  that  by  delay  they  may  dismiss  the  present 
grace,  and  lose  the  most  favored  moment  given  them 
to  secure  their  salvation,  is  the  strongest  and  most 
urgent  of  all  motives.  This,  in  fact,  is  absolutely 
requisite  to  the  stress  and  cogency  of  all  means  and 
agencies.  Such  is  the  procrastinating  spirit  of  men, 
so  fast  bound  are  they  in  the  love  of  sin,  that  how- 
ever deeply  they  may  feel  their  own  guilty  and  lost 
estate,  nothing  but  the  fact  that  God  is  now  giving 


168  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

them  opportunities  and  aids  which  are  peculiar  and 
temporary  would  ever  foreclose  delay.  We  need  look 
no  farther  to  see  the  folly  of  supposing,  that  God 
must  not  act  periodically  or  variously,  if  he  act  at  all, 
in  renewing  men.  Why  act  uniformly  when  it  would 
defeat  all  the  ends  of  action  ? 

This  attempt  to  exhibit  the  spiritual  economy  of 
God  in  revivals  might  be  prosecuted  much  farther.  It 
would  be  useful  too,  if  we  could  stop  here  to  admire 
the  wisdom  of  God's  spiritual  husbandry,  the  sys- 
tematic grandeur  with  which  he  compasses  all  his 
ends,  and  the  illustrious  honor  that  shines  in  his 
works  of  grace. 

But  we  must  hasten  forward.  And  here,  on  the 
second  side,  or  the  side  of  dishonor,  we  pass  to  views 
and  exhibitions  less  agreeable,  though  not,  we  hope, 
less  welcome. 

We  should  be  sorry,  if  in  what  we  have  advanced, 
a  shadow  of  countenance  has  been  given  to  the  im- 
pression that  the  Christian  is  allowed,  at  some  times, 
to  be  less  religious  than  at  others.  He  is  under  God's 
authority  and  bound  by  his  law  at  all  times.  He  must 
answer  to  God  for  each  moment  and  thought  of  his 
life.  His  covenant  oath  consecrates  all  his  life  to  God, 
and  stipulates  for  no  intermission  of  service.  At  no 
time  can  he  shrink  from  religious  obligation,  without 
dishonor  to  his  good  faith,  together  with  a  loss  of 
character  and  of  God's  favor.  Furthermore  still,  it 
is  his  duty  and  privilege  ever  to  be  filled  with  the 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  169 

Spirit.  The  believer  is  one  chosen  for  his  indwelling, 
thus  consecrated  to  be  the  divine  temple.  And  God 
will  never  leave  his  temple,  except  he  is  driven  away 
by  profanation, — grieved  away.  ''  I  have  somewhat 
against  thee,"  said  the  Saviour,  "  because  thou  hast 
left  thy  first  love."  He  did  not  require,  of  course, 
that  the  novelty  and  first  excitement  of  feeling  should 
last,  but  that  love,  the  real  principle  of  love,  should 
lose  ground  in  them  was  criminal.  Let  us  not  be  mis- 
taken. The  Christian  is  as  much  under  obligation  at 
one  time  as  at  another,  though  not  under  obligation 
to  be  ever  doing  the  same  things  ;  no  intermission,  no 
wavering  or  slackness  is  permitted  him  ;  nay,  he  is 
bound  to  increase,  or  gather  strength  in  his  religious 
principles,  every  day  and  hour  of  his  existence. 

But  how  shall  we  harmonize  this  with  what  we  have 
advanced  in  the  first  side  of  our  subject  ?  The  answer 
is  this :  God  favors  and  appoints  different  moods  or 
kinds  of  religious  interest,  but  not  backslidings,  or 
declensions  of  religious  principle.  There  are  diversi- 
ties of  gifts,  but  the  same  Spirit.  There  are  diversi- 
ties of  operation,  but  it  is  the  same  God  who  worketh 
all  and  in  all.  There  is  a  common  mistake  of  sup- 
posing that  the  Spirit  of  God  is  present  in  times  only 
of  religious  exaltation,  or  if  it  be  true,  that  such  need 
be  the  case.  It  is  conceivable,  that  he  may  be  doing 
as  glorious  a  work  in  the  soul,  when  there  is  but  a  very 
gentle,  or  almost  no  excitement  of  feeling.  He  may 
now  be  leading  the  mind  after  instruction,  teaching 
the  believer  hoT7  to  collect  himself  and  establish  a 


170  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

regimen  over  his  lawless  Avill  and  passions,  searching 
the  motives,  inducing  a  habit  of  reflection,  teaching 
how  to  carry  principles  without  excitement,  drawing 
more  into  communion  perliaps  with  God,  and  less  for 
the  time  with  men.  And  while  the  disciple  is  con- 
ducted through  these  rounds  of  heavenly  discipline, 
we  are  by  no  means  to  think,  that  he  is,  of  course, 
less  religious,  or  has  less  supreme  love  to  God,  than 
he  had  in  the  more  fervid  season  of  revival.  A  sol- 
dier is  as  much  a  soldier  when  he  encamps  as  when 
he  fights,  when  he  stands  with  his  loins  girt  about, 
and  his  feet  shod  with  the  preparation,  as  when  he 
quenches  the  fiery  darts  of  the  enemy.  The  Chris- 
tian warfare  is  not  all  battle.  There  are  times  in  it 
for  polishing  the  armor,  forming  the  tactics,  and  feed- 
ing the  vigor  of  the  host. 

These  remarks  bring  us  to  conclude,  that  there  is, 
in  what  we  call  revivals  of  religion,  something  of  a 
periodical  nature,  which  belongs  to  the  appointed  plan 
of  God  in  his  moral  operations ;  but  as  far  as  they 
are  what  the  name  imports,  revivals  of  religion^  that 
is,  of  the  principle  of  love  and  obedience,  they  are 
linked  with  dishonor  ;  so  far  they  are  made  necessary 
by  the  instability  and  bad  faith  of  Christ's  disciples. 
But  here  it  must  be  noted,  that  the  dishonor  does  not 
belong  to  the  revival,  but  to  the  decay  of  principle  in 
the  disciple,  which  needs  reviving.  There  ought  to 
be  no  declension  of  real  principle ;  but  if  there  is,  no 
dishonor  attaches  to  God  in  recovering  his  disciple 
from  it,  but  the  more  illustrious  honor.     Thus  it  is 


OF    REVIVALS    OP    RELIGION.  171 

very  often  true,  when  a  revival  seems  to  have  an  ex- 
treme character,  that  the  fact  is  due,  not  to  the  real 
state  produced,  but  to  the  previous  fall,  the  dearth  and 
desolation  with  which  it  is  contrasted.  And  com- 
monly, if  the  ridicule,  thrown  upon  a  revival,  were 
thrown  upon  the  worldliness,  the  dishonorable  loose- 
ness of  life  and  principle  which  preceded,  it  would 
not  be  misplaced. 

We  now  pass  on  to  a  stage,  in  which  dishonor 
attaches  to  the  scene  of  revival  itself.  This  is  when 
it  takes  an  extreme  character,  which  is  not  given  it 
by  the  Spirit  of  God,  but  originates  in  some  mistake 
of  opinion,  or  extravagance  of  conduct  in  the  subjects 
and  conductors.  We  cannot  pretend  here  to  specify 
every  sort  of  error  which  may  vitiate  a  revival,  or  give 
it  an  extreme  character ;  but  we  will  note  a  few 
leading  mistakes  which  have  a  prevalent  influence. 

And  a  capital  mistake  is  that  of  supposing,  that 
we  ought  to  have  a  revival,  so-called,  or  the  exact 
mood  of  a  revival,  at  all  times.  It  is  taken  for 
granted,  when  the  peculiar  fervor  of  the  work  begins 
to  abate,  that  the  disciples  are  sinking  into  sloth  and 
criminal  decay,  and  never,  that  the  Spirit  is  now  giv- 
ing a  varied  complexion  to  his  work.  Prodigious 
efforts  are  made  to  rally  the  church  to  renewed  ac- 
tivity. The  voice  of  supplication  is  tried.  But  all 
in  vain ;  it  is  praying  against  God  and  nature,  and 
must  be  vain.  Not  that  it  must  be  vain  in  every 
case ;  but  only  in  cases  where  God's  plan  is  otherwise 
ordered,  or   where  the  natural   excitabilitics  of  the 


172  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

cliiircli  are  so  far  exhausted  as  to  demand  a  different 
sort  of  exercise.  Efl'ort  spent  in  this  way  produces 
additional  exhaustion  and  discouragement.  A  tedious 
intermission  of  life  follows.  At  length  the  suscepti- 
bilities of  nature  to  excitement  and  attention  recruit 
themselves,  as  by  a  very  long  sleep,  and  there  flames 
out  another  period  of  over-worked  zeal  to  be  suc- 
ceeded as  before.  If,  instead  of  such  a  course,  the 
disciple  was  taught,  as  the  revival,  so-called,  declines, 
that  God  is  now  leading  him  into  a  new  variety  of 
spiritual  experience,  where  he  has  duties  to  discharge, 
as  clear,  as  high,  as  in  the  revival  itself ;  if  he  were 
encouraged  to  feel  that  God  is  still  with  him ;  if  he 
were  shown  vrhat  to  do  and  how  to  improve  the  new 
variety  of  state,  taught  the  art  of  growing  in  the  long 
run,  how  to  make  the  dews,  the  rain,  the  sun,  and  the 
night,  all  lend  their  aid  alike ;  in  a  word,  if  he  were 
taught  the  great  Christian  art  of  discerning  the  mind 
of  the  Spirit,  so  that  he  shall  be  ever  pliant  thereto, 
and  not  to  pass  reluctantly  into  his  progressive  moods 
of  culture  and  duty  ;  can  any  one  fail  to  see,  that  ex- 
tremities of  action  would  thus  be  greatly  reduced  ? 
He  has  not  some  strained  and  forced  sort  of  religion 
to  live  always,  which,  after  all,  no  straining  or  forcing 
can  make  live.  The  pendulum  swings  in  smaller 
vibrations.  Tlicre  is  no  wide  chasm  of  dishonor,  .no 
strained  pitch  of  extravagance,  but  only  a  sacred  ebb 
and  flow  of  various  but  healthful  zeal.  It  is  the  great 
evil  in  that  sort  of  teaching,  which  insists  on  the  duty 
of  being  always  in  what  is  called  a  revival  state,  that 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  173 

it  tries  to  force  an  impossible  religion.  The  supposed 
obligation  is  assented  to,  and  the  Christian  struggles 
hard  to  answer  it.  But  nature  struggles  against  him, 
being  utterly  unable  to  keep  up  such  a  state.  At 
length  he  yields,  in  a  perplexed  and  half-despairing 
manner,  not  knowing  what  it  means.  Still  he  owns 
very  dutifully  that  it  is  his  sin,  and  as  he  tries  no 
more  to  avoid  it,  he  seems  to  himself  to  be  sinning 
by  actual  and  daily  consent ;  and  this  becomes  in  fact 
the  real  temper  of  his  heart.  He  gives  over  all  care 
of  his  spirit,  violates  his  conscience  in  other  ways, 
since  he  must  do  it  in  one,  and  sinks  into  extreme 
declension.  More  judicious  views  of  duty  would  have 
saved  him. 

Tlte  feeling,  extensively  prevalent,  that  if  anything 
is  to  be  done  in  religion,  some  great  operation  must 
be  started,  is  another  pernicious  mistake.  The  ordi- 
nary must  give  way  to  the  extraordinary.  Machinery 
must  be  constructed,  and  a  grand  palpable  onset 
moved.  Let  it  not  be  suspected  that  we  are  afraid  of 
all  stir  and  excitement.  The  views  advanced  in  the 
former  part  of  our  subject  should  teach  us  higher 
wisdom.  The  greatest  and  best  actions  have  ever 
been  performed  in  stages  of  excited  feeling  and  high 
personal  exaltation.  Nothing  was  ever  achieved,  in 
the  way  of  a  great  and  radical  change  in  men  or  com- 
munities, without  some  degree  of  excitement;  and 
if  any  one  expects  to  carry  on  the  cause  of  salvation 
by  a  steady  rolling  on  the  same  dead  level,  and  fears 
continually  lest  the  axles  wax  hot  and  kindle  into  a 


174  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

flame,  he  is  too  timorous  to  hold  the  reins  in  the  Lord's' 
chariot.  What  we  complain  of  and  resist  is,  the  arti- 
ficial firework,  the  extraordinary,  combined  jump  and 
stir,  supposed  to  he  requisite  when  any  thing  is  to  be 
done.  It  seems  often  not  to  be  known,  that  there  is 
a  more  efficacious  way,  and  that  the  extraordinary 
got  up  in  action,  as  in  rhetoric,  is  impotence  itself.  It 
must  come  to  pass  naturally,  or  emerge  as  a  natural 
crisis  of  the  ordinary,  if  it  is  to  have  any  consequence. 
How  often  would  the  minister  of  Christ,  for  example, 
who  is  trying  to  marshal  a  movement,  do  a  more 
effectual  work  in  simply  reviewing  his  own  deficiencies 
of  heart  and  duty,  charging  himself  anew  with  his 
responsibilities,  and  devoting  himself  more  faith- 
fully to  his  people  and  to  God's  whole  truth !  A 
secret  work  thus  begun,  is  enough  to  heave  in  due 
time  a  whole  community ;  and  it  is  the  more  power- 
ful, because  it  moves  in  the  legitimate  order  of  action. 
It  begins,  bowing  to  duty  first  and  chief,  and  leaves 
results  for  the  most  part  to  come  in  their  natural 
shape.  It  works  in  the  hand  of  God,  trustfully,  hum- 
bly, pertinaciously,  and  following  whithersoever  he 
leads.  And  when  God  leads  his  servant,  as  certainly 
he  will,  into  a  crisis  of  great  moment,  he  is  in  it 
naturally,  he  molds  it  unto  himself,  as  if  constituted 
for  the  time  to  be  its  presiding  power. 

Where  too  much  is  made  of  conversions,  or  where 
they  are  taken  as  the  measure  of  all  good,  it  has  a 
very  injurious  influence.  The  saying  constantly  re- 
peated and  without  qualification,  that  it  is  the  great 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  175 

business  of  the  gospel  and  of  Christian  effort  to  con- 
vert men,  has  about  as  much  error  as  truth  in  it.  As 
well  might  it  be  said,  that  the  great  business  of  trav- 
elers is  to  set  out  on  journeys.  The  great  business  of 
the  gospel  is  to  form  men  to  G-od.  Conversion,  if  it 
be  any  thing  which  it  ought  to  be,  is  the  beginning  of 
the  work,  and  the  convert  is  a  disciple,  a  scholar,  just 
beginning  to  learn.  If  all  the  attention  of  th©  church 
then  be  drawn  to  the  single  point  of  securing  conver- 
sions, without  any  regard  to  the  ripening  of  them ;  if 
it  be  supposed  that  nothing  is  of  course  doing  when 
there  are  no  conversions ;  if  there  is  no  thought  of 
cultivation,  no  valuation  of  knowledge  and  character, 
no  conviction  of  the  truth  that  one  Christian  well 
formed  and  taken  care  of  is  worth  a  hundred  mere 
beginners,  who  are  in  danger  perhaps  of  proving  that 
they  never  began  at  all ;  if  revivals  themselves  are 
graduated  in  their  value  only  by  the  number  of  con- 
verts, and  Christians  in  declension  are  called  to  re- 
pentance only  for  the  sake  of  the  unconverted  public; 
the  whole  strain  of  movement  and  impression  is  one- 
sided, distorted,  and  tinctured  with  inherent  extrava- 
gance. 

We  name  only  one  more  mistake  having  a  per- 
nicious influence  on  the  character  of  revivals,  which 
is,  the  want  of  a  judicious  estimate  of  the  advantages 
to  be  gained,  in  times  of  non-revival.  This  is  the 
great  practical  error  of  our  times.  Let  it  startle  no 
one,  if  we  declare  our  conviction,  that  religion  has  as 
deep  an  interest  in  the  proper  conduct  of  times  of 


176  SPIRITUAL    fJCONOMY 

non-revival,  as  in  these  periods  of  glowing  excitement. 
For  many  religious  purposes,  and  those  not  the  least 
important,  a  revival  is  less  advantageous  than  other 
times.  There  is  very  little  trial  of  principle  in  a  re- 
vival, as  is  proved  by  facts  always  developed  after- 
wards, in  some  of  the  brightest  examples  of  supposed 
conversion.  The  time,  pre-eminently  the  time  to 
strengthen  principle  and  consolidate  character,  is 
when  there  is  no  public  excitement.  And  for  this 
reason,  God's  spiritual  husbandry  includes  such  times, 
and  makes  them  so  prolonged  as  to  constitute  the 
greater  part  of  life,  showing  very  conclusively  the 
estimate  he  has  of  them.  At  such  times,  the  disciple 
is  occupied  more  in  study  and  doctrine,  in  self-inspec- 
tion, in  contemplation  of  God,  in  acting  from  princi- 
ple separately  from  impulse.  In  times  of  revival, 
foundations  are  broken  up,  and  new  impulses  received ; 
now,  these  impulses  are  consolidated  into  principle, 
and  permanently  enthroned  in  the  heart.  This,  at 
least,  ought  to  be  so.  And  because  it  is  not,  revivals, 
when  they  come,  have  less  power,  and  a  more  limited 
sphere  of  influence.  They  are  looked  on  often,  by 
those  who  weigh  their  effects,  as  only  shallow  frets  of 
excitement,  and  in  many  cases,  none  but  the  less  con- 
siderate and  feebler  class  of  minds  feel  their  power. 
Let  not  the  intervals  of  revival  be  undervalued,  or 
the  duties  belonging  to  them  disesteemed.  Great  oc- 
casions are  not  necessary  to  good  actions.  To  every 
thing  there  is  a  season,  and  a  time  to  every  purpose 
under  the  sun.  He  hath  made  every  thing  beauti- 
ful IN  HIS  TIME. 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGIONo  177 

We  have  thus  attempted  to  ascertam  the  divine 
economy  in  revivals  of  religion.  We  see  them  to  be 
in  no  degree  desultory,  except  as  they  partake  of  hu- 
man errors  and  infirmities.  They  lie  imbedded  in 
that  great  system  of  universal  being  and  event,  which 
the  divine  omnipresence  fills,  actuates,  and  warms. 
Here  they  are  cherished,  and  will  be,  as  long  as  the 
redemption  of  man  is  dear  to  the  eternal  heart,  and 
constitutes  one  of  the  ends  of  God's  pursuit.  As  the 
gospel  gains  enlargement  in  the  world,  and  the  Chris- 
tian mind  is  enlightened,  they  will  gradually  lose  their 
extreme  and  dishonorable  incidents,  and  will  consti- 
tute an  ebb  and  flow,  measured  only  by  the  pulses  of 
the  Spirit.  The  church  will  then  make  a  glowing, 
various,  and  happy  impression.  Her  armor,  though 
changed,  will  always  shine,  and  will  have  a  celestial 
temper  in  it.  Changing  hei'  front,  she  will  yet  always 
present  a  host  clad  in  the  full  panoply  of  God. 

But  really  to  act  on  views  like  these,  and  give  them 
their  legitim^ate  effect,  would  require  the  gospel  minis- 
ters, or  many  of  them,  to  change  somewhat  the  tone, 
and  enlarge  the  sphere  of  their  instructions.  Many 
would  need  to  acquire  a  nicer,  more  complete  and  pro- 
portional sense  of  character  themselves,  and  thus  learn 
to  go  beyond  the  line  of  exercises  which  only  urge 
repentance,  and  test  the  state  of  their  people.  By 
this  confined  method,  this  continual  beating  on  the 
same  spot,  they  only  produce  a  sense  of  soreness, 
which  recoils  from  their  attempts.  It  were  only  nec- 
essary to  open  the  epistles  of  Paul,  we  should  sup- 


178  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

pose,  to  see,  that  he  moved  in  a  range  of  topics  and 
duties  which  find  no  place  in  the  concern  of  many 
modern  preachers, — discontent,  envy,  anger,  jealousy, 
ambition,  gentleness,  purity,  modesty,  decency,  can- 
dor, industry, — a  catalogue  that  cannot  be  recited. 
We  see  at  once,  that  he  does  not  regard  the  religious 
character  in  his  converts  as  a  thing  by  itself,  a  con- 
version well  tested  and  followed  by  a  few  duties 
specially  religious.  He  considered  the  whole  charac- 
ter of  the  disciple," — mind,  manners,  habits,  princi- 
ples,— as  the  Lord's  property.  He  felt  that  the  gos- 
pel was  intended  and  fitted  to  act  on  every  thing  evil 
and  ungraceful  in  man's  character,  and  applied  it  to 
that  purpose.  And  thus  he  sought  to  present  his 
disciples  perfect  and  complete  in  all  the  will  of  God ; 
a  much  more  difficult  and  laborious  way  of  preaching 
than  the  one  to  which  indolence,  we  fear,  now  adds 
prevalence.  Let  the  minister  of  truth  then  occupy 
such  intervals  as  are  suitable,  and  which  we  have 
supposed  to  be  ordered  of  the  Spirit  for  that  purpose, 
in  forming  the  character  of  his  people  to  things  lovely 
and  of  good  report.  Let  him  take  advantage  of 
scripture  history,  and  especially  of  the  history  of 
Christ's  life  and  manners,  to  draw  out  illustrations  of 
character,  and  beget  what  is  so  much  needed  by  the 
Christian  body,  a  sense  of  character,  of  moral  beauty 
and  completeness.  Let  him  not  use  the  parable  of  the 
talents  always  to  enforce  the  duty  of  usefulness. 
Sometimes,  at  least,  let  mention  be  made  of  doubling 
the  talents,  making  the  ten  twenty,  the  five  ten.     Let 


OF    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  179 

him  follow  the  people  into  their  business,  into  their 
civil  duties,  and  especially  into  their  domestic  rela- 
tions ;  showing  the  manner  in  which  children  may  be 
trained  up  as  Christians  in  the  nurture  of  the  Lord  ; 
seeking  to  surround  the  Christian  homes  with  Chris- 
tian graces ;  teaching  how  to  make  them  pleasant  to 
the  youth,  and  at  the  same  time  spiritually  healthful. 
And  let  him  do  all  this  in  the  manner  of  Paul  or 
Oberlin,  as  a  work  of  the  Spirit,  a  work  into  wliicli 
the  Holy  Spirit  leads  him  as  truly  as  into  any  other. 
The  tendrils  of  the  vines  are  small  things,  but  yet 
they  support  the  grapes.  In  like  manner  this  dispo- 
sition to  adorn  the  doctrine  of  Christ  by  a  nice  obedi- 
ence and  a  faithful  copying  of  the  Saviour,  is  that 
which  knits  the  Christian,  tendril-like,  to  Grod's  sup- 
port. On  the  other  hand,  the  gross  inovement, 
always  aiming  at  a  chief  point  of  Christian  character, 
without  any  care  to  finish  a  Christian  conscience  and 
a  Christian  taste,  is  only  trying  to  make  the  vines 
adhere  by  their  trunks. 

We  are  not  without  a  sense  of  deep  responsibility 
in  giving  these  views  to  the  public.  If  they  are  mis- 
understood or  misapplied,  they  may  work  incredible 
injury.  We  are  anxious  indeed,  lest  they  be  perverted 
to  the  justification  of  real  declension  from  God  and 
made  to  sanction  a  lower  and  perhaps  more  incon- 
stant piety  than  we  now  have.  And  yet  we  are  sure 
that  they  provide  for  a  higher  class  of  attainments,  a 
more  constant  growth  towards  God,  and  favor  the 
preparation  of  a  new  order  of  Christians  who  sliall 


180  SPIRITUAL    ECONOMY 

really  walk  by  faith  from  year  to  year.  In  showing 
the  use  and  necessity  of  times  of  non-revivalj  we  do 
not  justify  the  present  habit  of  Christian  declension 
in  these  intervals ;  we  rather  show  the  sinfulness  of 
it,  that  it  is  unnecessary,  that  it  is  a  rank  abuse  of 
sacred  means  and  privileges.  We  make  it  possible 
for  the  Christian  at  such  times  to  be  as  holy,  to  do  as 
good  a  work,  to  have  the  communion  of  God  as  really 
as  in  a  revival,  and  since  it  is  possible  to  be  done,  it 
is  only  faithlessness,  without  excuse,  when  it  is  other- 
wise. 

Oiir  doctrine  naturally  terminates  here, — in  proving 
it  to  be  the  great  business  and  art  of  the  Christian  to 
watch  for  the  mind  of  the  Spirit,  and  shape  the  life 
evermore  pliantly  thereto.  They  that  walk  in  the 
Spirit,  shall  be  led  by  the  Spirit ;  this  we  firmly  be- 
lieve. Hence  the  Saviour  was  at  great  pains  to  incul- 
cate on  the  disciples  readiness,  Avatching  for  their 
Lord's  coming,  and  observation  of  the  signs  of  the 
times.  And  his  Spirit  is  to  help  their  infirmity  of 
discernmiCnt,  and  gaiide  them  by  his  intercessions  or 
inward  intercourses  to  such  praying,  such  work  and 
occupations  as  are  according  to  God's  will.  "  I  will 
guide  thee  with  mine  eye,"  is  the  sure  declaration  of 
God.  But  in  order  to  this,  the  Christian  must  look 
at  the  indications  of  his  eye ;  and  in  order  to  this  he 
inust  have  a  single  eye  himself.  He  must  walk  by 
faith,  he  must  never  awiuiesce  in  sin,  he  must  never 
allo^  the  world  to- get  dominion  over  him.  Doing 
this,  he  will  be  directed  what  to  do,  and  where  to  go, 


OP    REVIVALS    OF    RELIGION.  181 

exercised  in  the  best  ways,  led  to  perform  the  best 
service.  Tlie  eye  op  the  Lord  will  lead  hinGTabout 
through  all  the  rounds  of  the  Spirit,  and  the  glory  of 
the  divine  holiness  will  ever  encompass  him. 

0  Christian  1  man  renewed  by  grace,  dost  thou  in- 
deed believe  that  God  inhabits  thee  with  his  holiness, 
and  makes  thee  his  temple  ?  Be  thou  then  a  temple 
indeed,  a  sacred  place  to  him.  Exclude  covetousness ; 
make  not  thy  Father's  house  a  house  of  merchandize. 
Deem  every  sin  a  sacrilege.  Let  all  thy  thoughts 
within,  like  white-robed  priests,  move  round  the  altar 
and  keep  the  fire  burning.  Let  thine  affections  be 
always  a  cloud,  filling  the  room  and  inwrapping  thy 
priest-like  thoughts.  Let  thy  hallowed  desires  be  ever 
fanning  the  mercy-seat  with  their  wings. 


PULPIT  TALENT.* 


There  was  never  a  time,  I  think,  when  so  much  was 
made  of  talented  preaching,  and  talents  for  preach- 
ing, as  now.  I  wish  we  understood  a  good  deal  better 
what  we  mean  by  it.  Every  young  candidate  wants 
the  talents  of  course,  and  everybody  is  very  decided 
in  the  opinion  that  he  must  have  them.  Even  the 
little  new  hamlets  crowded  under  the  woods,  and 
the  third-rate  water-power  villages  sprinkled  along 
the  brooks,  have  made  up  their  minds  that  they  too 
must  have  a  talented  preacher ;  only  they  are  not 
always  quite  clear  as  to  what  may  be  necessary  to 
make  one.  Indeed,  they  are  not  as  much  baffled  com^N 
monly  in  the  matter  of  salvation  itself  as  in  finding 
just  the  minister  that  is  worthy  of  them.  The  gen- 
eral refrain  is :  "Do  not  our  people  want  as  good  a 
preacher  as  anybody  ?  "  And  the  real  wonder  often 
felt  and  sometimes  expressed  is  that  our  schools,  find- 
ing how  much  a  larger  supply  of  Beechers  is  wanted, 

■^Delivered  before  the  Porter  Rhetorical  Society  of  Audover 
Seminary,  at  their  Anniversary  in  1866. 

(182) 


PULPIT    TALENT.  183 

do  not  turn  out  the  number  demanded.  Nay,  there 
is,  I  fear,  a  silent  scolding  of  Providence  that  so  few 
of  them  are  born,  when  the  world  is  overstocked  by 
such  myriads  of  men  propagated  in  the  common  fig- 
ure. The  result  is,  that  the  young  men,  looking  out 
on  the  field  and  preparing  for  it,  are  either  prodig- 
iously elated  in  the  confidence  that  they  have  just  the 
talents  required,  as  perhaps  they  have  been  told  by 
their  admiring  comrades ;  or  else  that  they  are  miser- 
ably crushed  by  the  discouraging  prospect  before 
them,  because  nobody  has  told  them  that  they  have 
any  talent  at  all,  and  their  modesty  if  not  their  real 
lack  has  withheld  tlicm  from  the  consciousness  of 

Most  wretched  and  pitiful  are  the  hallucinations 
here  encountered.  These  forty  hundred  or  forty 
thousand  churches,  looking  every  one  after  a  talented 
preacher,  will  certainly  not  get  one  ;  and  the  few  that 
are  boasting  their  success  will  be  discovering  almost 
certainly,  after  a  while,  that  they  have  been  a  little 
mistaken.  Almost  as  certainly  the  young  men,  going 
out  with  so  great  expectations,  will  find,  a  great  part 
of  them,  that  they  do  not  catch  the  popular  approval 
after  all ;  or,  if  they  do,  will  shortly  be  obliged  to 
discover  that  they  are  much  closer  down  to  mediocrity 
than  they  supposed.  Meantime,  of  those  who  go  out 
in  a  tremor  of  weakness  and  discouragement,  some 
at  least  will  begin  to  be  set  on  powerfully  by  a  hid- 
den force  they  were  unconscious  of  and  which  did  not 
enter  into  the  computations  of  their  friends.     And  so 


184  PULPIT    TALENT. 

it  will  be  shown,  both  by  cases  of  unexpected  failure 
and  of  equally  surprising  success,  that  factors  are. 
concerned  in  preaching  not  commonly  included  in  our 
computations.  What  I  propose,  therefore,  at  the  pres-  i 
ent  time  is,  to  discover,  if  I  can,  these  hidden  factors, 
and  by  that  means  right  our  conceptions  where  they 
seem  to  falter.  And  I  have  a  considerable  hope  that, 
by  a  certain  process,  it  may  be  done. 

Attempts  are  often  made  in  this  direction  that  are 
much  more  distinctively  Christian  than  what  I  now 
propose,  and  so  far  more  genuine ;  but  which,  partly 
for  that  reason,  do  not  succeed  according  to  their 
merit.  They  undertake  to  show,  and  do  really  show, 
that  preaching  is  not  grounded  in  mere  talent,  but  is 
and  must  forever  be  a  divine  gift.  No  man,  they  in- 
sist, ever  becomes  a  prophet  or  a  powerful  Christian 
preacher  in  whom  this  divine  gift  is  wanting.  And 
here  is  the  reason,  they  allege,  why  so  many  talented 
preachers  come  to  nothing,  and  why  so  many  that 
seemed  to  have  little  promise  at  first  finally  obtain  so 
great  power  and  conquer  a  degree  of  success  so  un- 
expected. We  generally  assent  to  this  kind  of  argu- 
ment, because  it  is  honorable  to  religion,  and  what  is 
more,  because  it  coincides  with  some  very  plain  teach- 
ings of  Scripture.  But  the  difficulty  is  that  the  truth 
asserted  is  too  particularly  spiritual,  and  requires  too 
much  faith  to  hold  us  up  to  it ;.  therefore,  we  fall  away 
from  it  shortly  and,  forgetting  ourselves,  begin  again 
to  base  our  calculations  of  promise  on  mere  judg- 
ments of   natural  force ;  that  is,  on  the  talents  as 


PULPIT    TALENT.  185 

forces.  What  I  propose  therefore  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, is  to  follow  the  bad  method  myself ;  to  subside 
into  just  this  plane  of  unbelief  or  non-belief,  and  sliow 
tliat,  resting,  as  we  so  perversely  do,  all  promise  for 
the  pulpit  on  mere  computations  of  personal  talent, 
we  still  need  a  complete  revision  commonly  of  our 
judgments,  because  of  the  very  insufficient  conceptions 
v\'e  have  of  the  pulpit  talents  themselves.  I  shall 
make  out,  if  I  am  successful,  a  larger  inventory  of 
the  talents,  and  one  tliat  more  sufficiently  measures 
the  personal  momenta  necessary  to  success. 

As  we  commonly  speak,  it  takes  just  four  talents 
to  make  a  great  preacher ;  namely, — a  talent  of  liigh 
scholarship;  a  metaphysical  and  thcologic  thinking 
talent ;  style  or  a  talent  for  expression ;  and  a  talent 
of  manner  and  voice  for  speaking.  In  these  four 
talents  the  young  men  of  the  schools  commonly  settle 
their  comparisons,  and  graduate  their  prognostications 
of  success.  The  people  too,  so  far  as  they  think  any 
thing  definitely  in  the  matter,  have  no  doubt  that 
these  four  things  will  make  up  the  man  they  are  to 
seek.  We  may  therefore  call  these  four  the  canonical 
talents,  for  they  certainly  have  that  kind  of  pre- 
eminence. 

Now,  about  the  real  importance  of  these  four  there 
is  little  room  to  doubt,  and  the  liigh  opinion  held  of 
them  already  makes  it  unnecessary  to  raise  an  argu- 
ment for  them.  Our  seminaries  of  learning  lay  their 
stress  ou  these,  and  exist  in  no  small  degree  for  the 


186  PULPIT    TALENT. 

I 

culture  of  these ;  for  tlicse  four,  it  happens,  are  the 
,  specially  cultivatable  talents.  And  so  much  being 
expended  on  them  naturally  induces  a  comparative 
over-valuation,  which  makes  it  necessary  to  pass  them 
under  review,  if  we  are  to  get  the  scale  of  our  inven- 
tory settled  to  a  right  adjustment. 

It  is  very  clear  then,  first  of  all,  that  a  dolt  in 
scholarship  is  not  likely  to  become  a  great  preacher. 
And  it  is  about  equally  clear  that  one  may  be  an  easy, 
rapid  learner,  in  the  sense  of  acquisition,  and  be 
really  nobody.  Sometimes  it  will  be  found  that  a 
scholar  preacher,  who  is  partly  somebody,  will  even 
kill  a  tolerable  sermon  by  letting  his  scholarship  into 
it.  And  then  again  it  will  sometimes  be  found  that 
a  preacher,  who  is  only  not  a  scholar  because  he  has 
never  had  the  opportunity  to  be,  will  unfold  the  very 
highest  preaching  power  in  the  field  of  mere  practice, 
as  we  see  by  some  noble  examples  among  the  great 
preachers  of  Mctliodism.  Still  even  sucli,  if  we  can- 
not speak  of  their  scholarship,  will  be  as  far  as  possi- 
ble from  the  state  of  ignorance.  Meantime,  if  it  be 
not  true,  as  it  certainly  is  not,  that  the  preachers 
i  from  a  given  school  will  be  graduated  in  their  preach- 
ing merit  and  power  by  the  amount  of  their  learning, 
it  must  not  be  understood  that  we  have  in  such  a  fact 
any  derogation  from  the  value  of  learning.  In  such 
an  age  as  this,  we  must  have  a  proportion  at  least  of 
learned  men  in  the  cause  of  religion.  Indeed,  every 
preacher  wants,  in  a  certain  view,  if  it  could  be  so,  to 


PULPIT    TALENT.  187 

know  very  nearly  every  thing.  And  yet  let  him  not 
mistake.  Books  are  not  every  tiling  by  a  great  deal_^ 
It  is  even  one  of  the  sad  things  about  book-learning 
that  it  so  easily  becomes  a  limitation  upon  souls,  and 
a  kind  of  dry  rot  in  their  vigor.  The  receptive  fac- 
ulty absorbs  the  generative,  and  the  scholarhood  sucks 
up  the  manhood.  An  oak  that  should  undertake  to 
be  a  sponge  would  not  long  be  much  of  -an  oak.  I^, 
know  not  how  to  put  this  matter  of  scholarship  better 
tlian  to  say  that  it  needs  to  be  universal ;  to  be  out  in 
God's  universe,  that  is,  to  see,  and  study,  and  know 
every  thing,  books  and  men  and  the  whole  work  of 
God  from  the  stars  downward ;  to  have  a  sharp  observa- 
tion of  war,  and  peace,  and  trade, — of  animals,  and 
trees,  and  atoms, — of  the  weather,  and  the  evanescent 
smells  of  the  creations ;  to  have  bored  into  society  in 
all  its  grades  and  meanings,  its  manners,  passions, 
prejudices,  and  times ;  so  tliat,  as  the  study  goes  on, 
the  soul  will  be  getting  full  of  laws,  images,  analogies, 
and  facts,  and  drawing  out  all  subtlest  threads  of  im- 
port to  be  its  interpreters  when  the  preaching  work 
requires.  Of  what  use  is  it  to  know  the  German 
when  we  do  not  know  the  human  ?  Or  to  know  the 
Hebrew  points  when  we  do  not  Ivuow  at  all  the  points 
of  our  wonderfully  punctuated  humanity  ?  A  preacher 
wants  a  full  store-house  of  such  learning,  and  then 
he  wants  the  contents  all  shut  in,  so  that  they  can 
never  one  of  them  get  out,  only  as  they  leap  out  un- 
bidden to  help  him  and  be  a  language  for  him.  It 
should  even  be   as  if  he   had  a  sky-full  of  helpers 


188  PULPIT    TALENT. 

thronging  to  his  aid  when  they  are  not  sent  for,  and 
endowing  him  with  ministrations  of  power  when  they 
do  not  show  their  faces.  As  far  as  the  preacher  is 
concerned,  this  large,  free  kind  of  scholarship  is  the 
only  kind  that  will  do  him  much  good. 

The  metaphysical  and  theologic  thinking  talent  has 
a  deeper  and  more  positive  vigor.  There  cannot  be 
much  preaching  worthy  of  the  name  where  there  is  no 
thinking.  Preaching  is  nothing  but  the  bursting  out 
of  light,  which  has  first  burst  in  or  up  from  where 
God  is,  among  the  soul's  foundations.  And  to  this 
end,  great  and  heavy  discipline  is  wanted,  that  the 
soul  may  be  drilled  into  orderly  right  working.  And 
yet  a  merely  cold,  scientific  thinking  is  vicious.  The 
method  of  preaching  is  not  the  scientific  method. 
The  true  thinking  here  is  the  original  insight  of 
premises  or  first  things,  and  not  the  building  of  cob- 
house  structures  round  them.  An  immense  overdo- 
ing in  the  way  of  analysis  often  kills  a  sermon,  if  it 
does  not  quite  kill  the .  preacher.  Death  itself  is  a 
great  analyzer,  and  nothing  ever  comes  out  of  the 
analyzing  process  fully  alive.  There  is  a  great  deal 
of  anatomizing  thought,  but  it  is  the  weakest,  cheap- 
est kind  of  thought  that  flesh  is  heir  to.  The  formu- 
lizing  kind  of  thought  is  but  a  little  better.  True 
preaching  struggles  right  away  from  formula,  back 
into  fact,  and  life,  and  the  revelation  of  God  and 
heaven.  It  is  a  flaming  out  from  God ;  it  reproves, 
■  testifies,  calls,  promises ;  thinking  always  of  the  an- 
gels going  up  to  report  progress,  not  of  the  answers 


PULPIT    TALENT.  189 

formulated  for  a  catechism.  I  make  no  objection  to 
formulas  ;  they  are  good  enough  in  their  place,  and  a 
certain  instinct  of  our  nature  is  comforted  in  having 
some  articulations  of  results  thought  out  to  which  our 
minds  may  refer.  Formulas  are  the  jerked  meat  of  | 
salvation, — -if  not  ahvays  the  strong  meat,  as  many/ 
try  to  think, — dry  and  portable  and  .good  to  keep,  and 
when  duly  seethed  and  softened,  and  served  with  need- 
ful condiments,  just  possible  to  be  eaten ;  but  for  the 
matter  of  living,  w^e  really  want  something  fresher^ 
and  more  nutritious.  On  the  whole,  the  kind  of 
thinking  talent  wanted  for  a  great  preacher  is  that 
which  piercingly  loves ;  that  which  looks  into  things 
and  through  them,  plowing  up  pearls  and  ores,  and 
now  and  then  a  diamond.  It  will  not  seem  to  go  on 
metaphysically,  or  scientifically,  but  with  a  certain 
round-about  sense  and  vigor.  And  the  people  will  be 
gathered  to  it  because  there  is  a  gospel  fire  burning  in 
it  that  warms  them  to  a  glow.     This  is  power. 

The  rhetorical  talent  or  talent  of  style  is  a  very 
great  gift,  and  one  that  can  be  largely  cultivated.  But 
the  ambition  of  style,  or  the  consciousness  of  it,  does 
not  always  need  to  be.  Neither  is  it  always  any  great 
sign  for  a  preacher  that  he  shows  a  considerable  lux- 
ury in  this  kind  of  excellence.  About  the  weakest, 
falsest  kind  of  merit,  and  most  opposite  to  good 
preaching,  is  the  studied,  common-place -book  style. 
A  great  many  preachers  die  of  style,  that  is,  of  trying 
to  soar ;  when,  if  they  would  only  consent  to  go  afoot 
as  their  ideas  do,  they  might  succeed  and  live.    Sophist 


190  PULPIT    TALENT. 

and  rhetorician  were  very  nearly  synonymous  in  the 
classic  days ;  for  they  had  the  same  trade  then  of 
taking  men  by  a  seeming,  or  a  pretentious  lie,  as  now. 
The  preacher  wants  of  course  to  know  his  mother 
tongue,  and  have  a  clear,  correct,  and  forcible  way  of 
expression  in  it.  And  then,  if  he  has  really  some- 
thing strong  enough  to  say,  to  call  in  angels  of  im- 
agery that  excel  in  strength  to  help  him  say  it,  there 
is  no  kind  of  symbol  observed  by  him,  in  heaven 
above,  or  in  the  earth  beneath,  that  will  not  be  at 
hand  to  lend  him  wings  and  lift  him  into  the  neces- 
sary heights  of  expression.  But  the  moment  these 
aerial  creatures  begin  to  see  that  they  are  wanted  for 
garnish,  and  not  for  truth's  sake,  they  will  hide  like 
partridges  in  the  bush.  To  get  up  grand  expressions 
in  the  manner  of  some,  and  then  go  a  hunting  after 
only  weak  ideas  to  put  into  them,  is  the  very  absurd- 
est  and  wickedest  violation  possible  of  the  second 
commandment.  No  man  has  a  right  to  say  any 
beautiful  or  powerful  thing  till  he  gets  some  thoughts 
beautiful  and  powerful  enough  to  require  it.  Only 
good  and  great  matter  makes  a  good  and  great  style. 
It  is  not  difficult  for  power  to  l)e  strong,  or  for  any 
real  fire  to  burn.  But  mere  rhetorical  fire  will  neither 
shake  nor  burn  any  thing.  And  just  here  it  is  that 
the  prodigious  promise  of  so  many  young  men  is  over- 
estimated. Could  they  only  understand  how  great  a 
thing  in  style  is  honesty,  simple,  self-forgetting  hon- 
esty, their  would-be  fine,  or  fanciful,  or  sublime  would 
fall  away,  and  they  would  finally  rise  just  as  much 


PULPIT    TALENT.  191 

higher,  even  in  style,  as  the  cast-off  trumpery  of  their 
affectations  and  laborious  inanities  permits  them  to 
rise.  Simple  modesty,  earnest  conviction, — what  a 
lifting  of  the  doom  of  impotence  would  they  be  to 
many  ! 

What  is  called  the  speaking  talent  is  often  miscon- 
ceived in  the  same  way.  It  is  mostly  a  natural  talent, 
though  it  can  be  modulated  and  chastened  by  criti- 
cism. But  the  difficulty  is,  that  such  kind  of  disci- 
pline has  to  be  commonly  dispensed,  before  the  sub- 
ject is  sufficiently  advanced  in  age  and  maturity  of 
perception  to  have  any  thing  on  hand  that  is  at  all 
worthy  of  a  manner,  or  indeed  even  possible  for  it. 
HoAV  can  he  fitly  speak  sentiments  before  he  has  them 
and  knows  the  weight  of  them?  If  he  takes  the 
boards  in  a  declamation,  astonishing  everybody  by  the 
wondrous  figure  he  makes,  and  compelling  his  audi- 
tors to  imagine  what  a  preacher  he  is  destined  to  be, 
it  is  more  likely  by  far  that  he  is  destined  to  be  a 
very  indifferent  speaker  in  the  humblest  type  of 
mediocrity.  I  have  never  known  a  great  college  de- 
claimer  that  became  a  remarkable  preacher;  but  I 
have  known  them  that  could  only  stammer  and  saw, 
and  tilt  up  their  rising  inflections  to  .the  general  pity 
of  their  audience,  who  became  natural  at  once  when 
they  began  to  speak  their  own  sentiments,  and  ob- 
tained great  power  in  delivery.  Meantime,  this  special 
fact  in  preaching  is  not  always  remembered,  that  the  \ 
artistic  air  kills  every  thing.  The  discovery  of  art  is 
very  nearly  fatal  everywhere,  and  is  never  in  fit  place 


192  PULPIT    TALENT. 

save  when  it  garnishes  temptation, — to  make  the  devil 
weaker  than  he  would  be.  The  absurdest  thing  ever 
believed  bv  mankind  is  the  story  of  Demosthenes  and 
his  pebbles :  first,  because  it  made  such  a  hard  time 
for  his  mouth ;  and  second,  because  it  made  such  a 
hard  time  for  the  pebbles  ;  and  third,  because  it  made 
even  a  harder  time  for  the  sea  that  was  oblio'ed  to 
hear  such  mouthings.  All  the  worse  if  a  speaker  so 
trained  gets  to  be  absolutely  faultless ;  for  that  is 
about  the  greatest  fault  possible.  I  have  heard 
preaching  more  than  once,  that  became  first  wearisome, 
then  shortly  disgusting,  for  the  simple  reason  that  the 
manner  was  so  perfectly  shaped  by  skill  and  self-regu- 
lation. After  such  an  exhibition,  it  is  even  refreshing 
to  imagine  the  great  "  babbler "  at  Athens,  jerking 
out  his  grand  periods,  and  stammering  his  thunder  in 
a  way  so  uncouth  as  to  be  even  a  little  comtemptible 
to  himself.  He  at  least  meant  what  he  said,  and 
because  he  did,  was  able  to  bring  himself  out  in 
respect  at  the  close.  In  just  the  same  way,  there  are 
many  young  men  who  arc  tliouglit  to  have  no  speaking 
talent,  and  are  greatly  depressed  themselves  because 
they  have  none,  some  of  whom  may  yet  become 
preachers  of  Christ  in  the  highest  rank  of  power  and 
genuine  eloquence. 

We  find  then,  as  a  result  of  this  review,  that  the 
four  canonical  talents,  always  valuable,  are  yet  certain, 
many  times,  to  be  no  true  signs  of  success.  A  man 
may  be  a  scholar  and  yet  no  preacher ;  he  may 
be  a  tough  thinker  and   great  metaphysician  and  yet 


PULPIT    TALENT.  193 

no  preacher ;  gifted  in  style,  or  thought  to  be,  and  yet 
no  preacher;  an  accomplished  and  fine  speaker  and 
yet  no  preacher.  Whence  it  also  follows,  that  he  may 
be  all  four,  and  yet  no  preaclier.  All  auguries  there- 
fore from  them  are  found  every  day  to  miscarry.  In 
which  we  perceive  beforehand,  that  there  must  be 
other  talents  lurking  somewhere  that  require  to  be 
brought  into  the  computation. 

I  shall  name  accordingly  as  many  as  six  or  seven 
others,  three  of  which  are  more  or  less  necessary  to 
all  kinds  of  speaking,  though  more  nearly  indispensa- 
ble in  preaching;  and  three  that  are  preeminently 
preaching  talents,  in  distinction  from  all  others ;  to- 
gether with  a  fourth  that  only  works  indirectly. 

In  the  former  class  then,  first  of  all,  I  name  what 
may  be  called  the  talent  for  growth.  Some  men 
never  grow.  They  grew,  and  that  was  the  end  of  it. 
They  excelled  in  the  school,  and  gave  the  highest 
promise  in  their  first  effort  at  preaching.  But  they 
are  soon  at  their  limit,  which  limit  they  will  never 
pass.  No  matter  how  great  their  industry  and  fidelity, 
they  will  never  advance  upon  themselves ;  and  if  you 
wait  for  them  to  come  on,  the  strange  thing  will  be 
that  they  do  not  come  an  inch.  They  appear  to  have 
all  the  talents,  and  have  them  in  full  order,  but  some- 
how the  law  of  increment  is  wanting.  Their  capital  is 
good  enough,  but  it  is  invested  so  as  to  gather  no  per 
cent,  of  interest  money.  It  is  as  if  their  mind  grew 
dimensionally  with  their  body,  and  stopped  when  the 


194  PULPIT    TALENT. 

vegetative  principle  of  that  came  to  its  limit.  Now 
there  is  anotlier  kind  of  souls  that  mature  more 
slowly  and  under  a  different  law.  Increment  is  their 
/destiny.  Their  force  makes  force.  What  they  gather 
seems  to  enlarge  their  very  brain.  Nobody  thought 
of  them  at  first  as  having  much  promise.  Their 
faculty  was  thin  and  slow.  They  were  put  down 
among  the  mediocrities.  But  while  the  other  class  are 
flagstaffs  only,  these  are  real  trees,  going  to  create 
themselves  like  trees  by  a  kind  of  predestined  incre- 
ment. By  and  by  it  begins  to  be  seen  that  they  move. 
Somebody  finally  speaks  of  them.  Their  sentiments 
are  growing  bigger,  their  opinions  are  getting  weight, 
ideas  are  breaking  in  and  imaginations  breaking  out, 
and  the  internal  style  of  their  souls,  thus  lifted,  lifts 
the  style  of  their  expression.  They  at  length  get  the 
sense  of  position,  and  then  a  certain  majesty  of  con- 
sciousness adds  weight  to  their  speech.  And  finally 
the  wonderful  thing  about  them  is  that  they  keep  on 
growing,  confounding  all  expectation,  getting  all  the 
while  more  breadth  and  richness,  and  covering  in  their 
life,  even  to  its  close,  with  a  certain  evergreen  fresh- 
ness that  is  admirable  and  beautiful  to  behold. 

Now  it  makes  little  difference  whether  we  refer  this 
faculty  of  improvableness,  this  wonderfully  cumulative 
property,  to  a  talent  of  growth  in  all  the  talents,  or  to 
some  function  of  endowment  that  is  more  general. 
That  some  persons  have  the  distinction  is  indisputa- 
ble. The  other  class  who  are  deficient  in  it  will  work 
as  hard  and  strain  their  application  to  as  high  a  key, 


PULPIT    TALENT.  195 

and  yet  they  will  not  grow  in  the  process,  any  more 
than  a  violin  that  has  been  thumbed,  and  sawed,  and 
kept  throbbing  with  a  body  full  of  sound  for  a  hun- 
dred years.  If  we  ask  why  it  is  that  such  application 
misses  the  natural  terms  of  reward,  it  may  be  that 
they  have  sometimes  overstrained  their  powers ;  or  it 
may  be  that  they  work  too  much  in  the  line  of  schol- 
arhood  and  only  get  their  souls  incrusted  by  the  mere 
cliency  of  their  habit ;  even  as  the  egg,  that  was 
growing  briskly  in  its  first  free  state,  enlarges  never 
by  a  line  after  it  has  found  maturity  in  a  shell.  Or  it 
may  be  that  they  get  over-conservative,  which  is  the 
same  thing  as  secreting  a  shell,  and  then,  even  as  the 
egg  may  keep  up  a  prodigious  conatus  of  vitality 
within,  making  no  advance  in  dimensions,  so  their  in- 
dustry creates  no  movement  of  growth. 

If  then,  we  are  to  guess  what  amount  of  promise 
there  may  be  in  any  body  of  young  men  who  are  going 
forth  to  assert  themselves  in  the  ways  of  speech  and 
public  influence,  it  is  very  important  to  know  who  has 
and  who  has  not  the  talent  of  protracted  improvability  ; 
who  can  wax  mighty  and  weighty  by  the  longest  pull 
of  increment,  for  that  is  even  a  kind  of  genius.  No- 
where else,  save  in  the  matter  of  genius,  are  mankind 
distinguished  as  widely  as  here  ;  and  the  distinction  is 
one  that  specially  concerns  every  preacher,  in  the  fact 
that  he  is  obliged  to  stay  by  his  place,  and  keep  on  in 
his  work,  and  provide  his  own  subjects,  and  set  his 
people  on  by  a  correspondent  growth  in  themselves. 


196  PULPIT    TALENT. 

I  name  again,  as  another  talent  which  greatly  con- 
cerns all  public  speaking  and  more  especially  preach- 
ing, because  this  latter  requires  to  be  more  piercing 
and  carry  its  effects  on  larger  assemblies,  what  may 
be  called  the  individualizing  power.  At  this  point 
there  is  a  very  great  difference  in  the  personality 
function  of  men ;  a  difference  great  enough  to  be 
designated  as  a  talent.  One  will  go  before  an  audi- 
ence and  see  nobody  in  particular  in  it.  He  will  give 
them  forth  a  really  grand  sermon,  it  may  be,  with  as 
little  aim,  or  particularity  of  aim,  as  a  gunner  firing 
into  Charleston  five  miles  off.  If  any  soul  in  the  as- 
sembly is  hit,  it  is  only  because  the  general  aim  had 
that  chance  in  it.  His  eye  did  not  preach,  but  only 
his  tongue  ;  whereas  the  eye-bolts  of  a  great  preacher 
may  be  swifter,  more  piercing,  and  in  better  aim  than 
those  of  the  tongue.  Mere  tongue-speaking,  in  this 
view,  is  pointless.  It  will  do  in  the  senate.  It  will 
possibly  do  at  the  polls.  It  is  more  deficient  at  the 
bar,  where  every  juryman  needs  to  imagine  that  he  is 
particularly  looked  after.  In  preaching,  the  deficiency 
is  almost  fatal.  I  have  in  mind,  when  I  speak  in  this 
manner,  a  certain  preacher  who  was  conspicuous  only 
because  he  was  effective,  and  was  effective  only  be- 
cause of  the  wonderfully  distributive  power  of  his  ad- 
dress, not  because  of  any  remarkable  merit  in  the 
style,  or  thought,  or  substance  of  his  sermon.  That 
keen,  gray,  individualizing  eye, — it  was  shooting 
everywhere,  into  every  body.  Not  five  minutes  passed 
before  every  person  in  the  assembly  began  to  feel  that 


PULPIT    TALENT.  197 

the  preacher's  two  six-shooters  were  leveled  directly 
at  him.  Generalities  were  soon  gone  by,  and  the 
dealing  was  become  a  very  personal  matter.  So  by 
this  one  talent  of  individualizing,  which  perhaps  was 
never  called  a  talent,  and  without  any  other  of  much 
note,  he  became  wonderfully  effective. 

Now  let  any  man  try  to  command  this  sort  of  power 
who  is  indeterminate  and  vague  in  his  habit  and  with- 
out eyes,  and  he  will  soon  begin  to  show  how  much  of 
a  talent  it  may  be.  His  very  stare  will  be  as  if  he 
were  looking  after  a  vacuum.  His  eyebolts  will  not 
fly  point-blank,  but  only  whirl  about  giddily  like  the 
wheels  of  a  fire-work  machinery.  Or,  if  he  tries  to  set 
his  gaze  and  be  a  presence  to  every  body,  the  drowsy 
opiate  of  his  eyes,  thus  fixed,  will  not  unlikely  shut 
the  eyes  of  every  body.  -.  \ 

This  remarkable,  but  not  over-admired  talent  has 
another  use ;  namely,  that,  while  other  talents  are 
talents  of  supply,  this  is  the  talent  of  economic  dis- 
tribution. To  forge  out  masses  of  truth  heavy  enough 
and  wide  enough  in  their  range  to  sway  whole  audi- 
ences, and  continue  to  do  it,  week  by  week,  and  year 
by  year,  requires  a  vast  generative  power  such  as  few 
men  possess.  But  with  more  particularity  of  aim,  a 
much  smaller  expenditure  will  answer ;  even  as  a 
gimlet  will  do  good  service  in  worming  its  particular 
hole,  or  many  thousand  holes,  when,  if  it  should 
undertake  to  emulate  the  scope  of  the  maelstrom,  it 
would  hardly  fill  so  large  a  figure.  Now  and  then  a 
man  has  capital  enough  for  wholesale  preaching,  but 


198  PULPIT    TALENT. 

the  particular  manner  of  a  retail  delivery,  both  in 
preaching  and  trade,  is  far  more  apt  to  succeed,  and 
the  success  to  be  more  real  and  reliable.  Hence  also 
it  is  that  a  great  many  young  men  die  out  in  their 
generalities  and  huge,  overgrown  subjects,  and  a  great 
many  others  who  appear  to  be  meagre  and  want  cali- 
ber, going  to  work  in  this  hopeful  way  of.  economy, 
will  even  preach  better  possibly,  and  more  effectively, 
than  if  they  were  more  profusely  endowed.  They 
will  at  least  be  saved  from  the  folly  of  trying  to  do 
something  so  great  in  the  general  as  to  do  nothing  at 
all  in  particular. 

1  name  again  as  a  talent  of  immense  consequence  in 
all  kinds  of  address,  and  especially  in  preaching,  what 
we  may  designate  as  having  a  soul,  or  as  we  some- 
times say,  a  great  soul.  Now  that  one  may  have  all 
the  talents  we  have  named,  including  the  four,  and 
yet  have  but  a  very  small  soul,  or  no  soul  at  all,  is 
understood,  or  ought  to  be,  by  every  body.  His  mo- 
tivities  may  be  visibly  selfish,  his  judgments  may  be 
weak,  his  impulse  small,  his  action  fussy  and  dry,  his 
resentments  petty,  his  jealousies  contemptible,  his 
prejudices  shallow  and  pitiful,  and  the  whole  cast 
of  his  nature  mean.  His  character,  even  though  it  be 
Christian  as  to  principle,  may  be  still  uncomfortable 
to  liimself,  and  wearisome  or  disgustful  to  others. 
How  can  such  a  man,  scholar  and  thinker  though  he 
be,  perfectly  artistic  in  style  and  delivery,  carry  any 
great  effect  in  assemblies  ?    How,  above  all,  can  he 


PULPIT    TALENT.  199 

fitly  represent  a  gospel  ?  On  the  other  hand,  a  man 
who  is  not  as  high  in  these  gifts  of  promise  as  he 
might  be,  but  has  a  really  great  soul, — ^liow  often  will 
his  mere  felt  quantity  and  weight  of  being  give  him  a 
considerable,  or  even  a  mighty,  preaching  power ! 
We  call  him,  for  example,  a  manly  person;  and 
though  there  is  just  now  an  immensity  of  gas  vented 
in  the  word,  we  are  still  not  so  totally  sick  of  it  as  to 
be  insensible  to  the  very  great  dignity  of  manliness. 
Paul,  for  example,  had  other  high  merits,  but  withal 
he  had  this  in  a  most  signal  degree.  Courage,  for 
instance,  is  one  of  the  grandest  elements  of  magnan- 
imity, and  his  courage  was  perfect ;  able  to  dare  any 
thing,  prudent  enough  to  dare  nothing  foolishly.  In 
the  same  way,  his  independence  was  at  once  complete, 
and  centralized  in  order  as  equably  as  the  solar  system. 
His  opinions  were  leveled  by  reason,  clean  above  the 
reach  of  conceit.  His  serenity  was  clear  as  the  sky. 
His  half  deific  love  put  him  above  resentments.  His 
deep  fellow-nature  put  him  in  the  lot  of  others,  apart 
from  all  considerations  of  merit,  or  even  of  personal 
wrongs  to  himself.  And  he  had  withal  a  sense  of 
self-respect  so  profound,  that  no  indignity,  stoning, 
whipping,  mocking,  spitting,  chains,  could  humble,  or 
bring  down  his  manly  consciousness,  any  more  than 
if  he  had  been  the  angel  in  the  sun.  Doubtless  he 
was  borne  up  into  this  transcendent  dignity  and  sup- 
ported in  it,  partly  by  the  inspirations  of  God  in  his 
life,  but  every  one  can  see  that  he  had  a  naturally 
great  soul.     And  the  soulhood  of  his  action  corres- 


200  PULPIT    TALENT. 

ponded.  When  we  are  most  consciously  in  his  power, 
we  hardly  know  whether  it  is  the  spirituality  or  the 
manliness  of  his  doctrine  that  most  impresses  us.  I 
think  it  likely  that  among  the  Jewish  scholars  and 
thinkers  of  Germany  there  are  some,  in  every  gener- 
ation, who  are  really  superior  to  him  as  such,  and 
yet  there  is  a  quantity  of  soul,  or  great  manhood  in 
him,  that  makes  them  all,  from  Spinoza  downward, 
little  more  than  trivialities  in  comparison. 

Passing  now  to  the  class  of  talents  that  are  most 
preeminently  preaching  talents  and  not  specially 
required  in  the  other  kinds  of  speech,  I  name,  first 
among  the  three,  the  talent  of  a  great  conscience  or 
a  firmly  accentuated  moral  nature.  A  man  may, 
plainly  enough,  be  a  great  scholar,  metaphysician,  rhet- 
orician, speaker  in  the  artistic  way,  and  yet  have  only 
a  weak,  scarcely  pronounced  conscience  ;  and  this,  to 
many,  will  pass  for  nothing,  because  they  are  not 
accustomed  to  think  of  the  conscience  as  being  any 
talent  at  all.  I  think  otherwise.  It  is  even  one  of 
the  grandest  talents  of  human  nature ;  that  which 
gives  it  a  reverberative  quality,  as  by  some  tremendous 
gong  of  conviction  quivering  in  its  chambers.  No 
great  and  high  authority  is  possible  in  a  movement  on 
souls,  without  a  great  conscience.  Principles  analyt- 
ically distinguished  and  reasoned  by  the  understanding 
have  a  tame  weak  accent  as  respects  authority,  but 
when  they  are  issued  from  the  conscience,  rung  as 
peals    by  the  conscience,  they  get  an   attribute   of 


PULPIT    TALENT.  201 

thunder.  Like  thunder  too,  they  are  asserted  by 
their  own  mere  utterance  and  the  unquestionable 
authority  of  their  voice. 

Now  it  is  not  denied  that  all  men,  taken  as  being 
simply  men,  have  consciences ;  they  would  not  be 
men  without  consciences.  But  there  is  a  very  great 
difference  in  the  degrees  of  consciences  and  the  kind 
of  timber  they  are  made  of.  Some  consciences  seem 
to  be  wholly  insignificant  and  weak  till  they  are  tem- 
pest-strung, or  get  mounted  somehow  on  the  back  of 
passion.  Then  there  is  no  hydrophobia  so  incurably 
mad ;  and  there  is  in  fact  no  human  creature  so 
thoroughly  wicked  and  diabolical,  as  he  that  is  pro- 
testing in  the  heat  of  his  will,  or  the  fume  of  his 
grudges  and  resentments,  how  conscientious  he  is. 
Another  kind  of  conscience  appears  to  be  felt  mainly 
as  an  irritant.  It  pricks  and  nettles,  but  does  not 
very  much  sway  even  the  subject  himself.  It  is  sharp, 
pungent,  thin,  but  never  kingly ;  felt  only  as  a  sliver, 
or  a  wasp  in  the  hair.  There  is  also  a  slimy,  would-be 
tender,  slow-moving  conscience,  that  draws  itself  in 
vicious  softness  like  a  snail  upon  a  limb,  till,  presto, 
the  conscientious  slime  hardens  into  a  shell,  and  what 
seemed  an  almost  skinless  sensibility  becomes  a  horny 
casement  of  impracticability,  obstinacy,  or  bigot  stiff- 
ness. Now  these  and  all  such  partial,  crotchety,  and 
misbegotten  consciences  are  insufficient  to  make  a 
powerful  preacher.  Their  diameter  is  not  big  enough 
to  carry  any  great  projectile  of  conviction.  No  mat- 
ter what,  or  how  great,  his  promise  on  the  score  of 


202  PULPIT    TALENT. 

his  other  gifts  and  acquirements,  he  cannot  be  impres- 
sive because  there  is  no  ring  of  authority  in  his  moral 
nature.  He  wants  a  lofty  and  large  moral  configura- 
tion, a  conscience  astronomically  timed  and  steady  in 
its  wide  orbit  as  are  the  stars  in  heaven's  original 
order.  Wanting  in  this  he  only  sputters  before  con- 
viction ;  his  vehemence  is  only  felt  as  annoyance,  his 
brilliancy  as  the  glitter  of  tinsel,  and  his  great  think- 
ing as  a  merely  puerile,  nerveless  intellectuality.  He 
can  hold  a  place  at  the  bar,  he  can  win  golden  opin- 
ions in  the  senate,  and  even  attain  high  rank  as  an 
orator  in  all  kinds  of  ornamental,  political,  and 
humanly  social  kinds  of  speaking;  but  without  a 
grand  reverberative  moral  nature,  towering  as  a  kind 
of  Sinai  thunder-capped  in  his  soul,  he  can  not  be  a 
successful  preacher. 

Again,  there  needs  to  be  in  every  powerful  preacher 
a  large  faith-talent.  I  do  not  say,  you  will  observe, 
a  large  faith,  but  a  large  faith-talent ;  for  if  there  is 
to  be  a  large  faith,  there  must  also  be  a  large  faith- 
talent  back  of  it,  in  which  respect  there  is  a  very 
great  difference  among  men.  Some  souls  have  natu- 
rally broad,  high  windows  opening  God-ward ;  and 
some  have  only  little  seams  or  chinks  letting  in  just 
enough  true  light  to  make  them  religious  beings, 
capable  of  salvation.  Some  like  fires  ascending  seek 
the  sun,  and  some  are  punky  natures,  in  which  the 
fire  only  smolders,  making  true  heat,  but  scarcely 
becoming  luminous.     These  latter  will  live,  as   dis- 


PULPIT    TALENT.  203 

ciples,  in  a  different  plane  ;  prudentially  wise,  it  may 
be  logical ;  busied  in  questions  of  the  understanding; 
but  there  is  not  simple  seeing  enough  in  them  to  make 
great  preaching.  A  large,  immediate,  and  free  be- 
holding is  necessary  to  make  a  powerful  preacher. 
A  large  deduction  by  the  understanding  will  not  do  it. 
Some  things  he  may  intuit  by  the  reason,  and  some 
by  the  moral  sense  ;  some  things  he  may  interpret 
and  realize  by  his  sympathies  ;  some  he  may  imagine  ; 
some  he  may  climb  into  by  his  aspirations.  But  these 
are  all  mere  functions  of  nature,  included  perhaps  in 
the  faith-talent,  but  still  in  themselves  not  faith.  Not 
any  one,  nor  all  of  them  together,  can  reach  the  invis- 
ible, or  put  us  in  the  sense  of  supernatural  facts  and 
worlds.  Faith  only,  as  a  talent  in  nature  for  a  super- 
natural beholding,  bridges  the  gulf  and  takes  us  ever 
into  the  knowledge  of  what  natural  premises  do  not 
contain,  and  no  mere  investigation  can  reach.  Faith 
has  a  way  of  proving  premises  themselves,  namely, 
by  seeing  them ;  seeing  the  known  centralized  in  the 
unknown,  the  visible  in  the  invisible ;  substance  or 
substantiator  thus  of  things  hoped  for,  evidence  of 
things  not  seen.  As  I  prove  the  bridge  by  trusting 
myself  to  it,  so  I  prove  all  highest  things  in  religion 
by  my  faith  in  them.  I  get  perception  thus  of  God. 
He  dawns  in  my  faith  as  the  morning  light  in  my  eye. 

So  in  virtue  of  the  faith-talent,  we  have  the  possi^ 
bility  also  of  divine  inspirations,  and  of  all  those  ex-  \ 
altations, — ^visibly  divine  movements  in  the  soul, — ^  i 
that  endow  and  are  needed  to  endow  the  preacher.   / 


204  PULPIT    TALENT. 

Other  speakers  do  not  want  such  inspirations  in  their 
common  public  spheres,  but  in  the  preacher  they  are 
even  indispensable.  And  there  is  a  very  great  differ- 
ence in  men  in  this  respect,  as  in  respect  to  faith.  All 
men  are  spirit,  permeable,  that  is,  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  and  able,  in  virtue  of  that  fact,  to  be^jiOTu  of  the 
Spirit.  But  the  being  inspirable  enougli'to  barely  be 
saved  is  not  the  kind  of  capacity  necessary  to  make  a 
great  preacher  of  Christ.  There  may  even  be  good, 
serviceable  men  in  religion,  having  a  serviceable  heat 
not  easily  exhausted,  who  have  yet  no  tinder-stock,  or 
infusion  of  naphtha  mixed  with  their  clay,  to  throw 
them  up  ever  into  flame.  They  are  anthracites  all, 
going  by  faith  principally  in  the  sense  that  they  trust 
the  calculations  of  their  understanding ;  wise  in  coun- 
cil, it  may  be,  good  for  the  composing  of  difficulties 
and  the  planning  of  solid  adjustments,  and  having  an 
immense  value  often  as  ballasting  for  the  ship.  But 
as  ballast  is  good  for  nothing  above  water-line,  and 
nobody  can  make  sails  of  ballast,  so  these  heavy 
natures  cannot  preach  in  avoirdupois,  or  do  anything 
in  a  way  of  propulsion. 

Neither  is  the  case  very  much  better  where  the  tem- 
perament rushes  one  directly  by  faith  into  great  vehe- 
mence and  passion.  This  kind  of  nature  is  often  less 
inspirable  even  than  the  other.  The  zeal  of  the  flesh 
is  too  hot  for  the  quiet  zeal  of  faith.  Nobody  expects 
either  steam  or  lightning  to  be  inspired.  Such  cannot 
have  a  call  of  God,  because  they  cannot  stay  for  it. 
Speaking  in  the  vehemence  of  steam,  there  will  be  no 


PULPIT    TALENT.  205 

accent  of  divinity  in  what  they  say ;  but  they  will  be 
very  much  like  those  hideously  sonorous  throats  of 
iron,  that  publish  a  call  every  morning  in  the  suburl)s 
of  our  cities,  which  is  most  perceptibly  not  divine. 

Now  there  is  nothing  more  evident  than  that  one 
may  have  all  the  four  canonical  talents  in  great  prom- 
ise, and  yet  have  almost  no  faith-talent  with  them,  no 
inspiration,  no  capacity  of  any.  Examples  of  the 
kind  are  even  common.  The  nature  they  have  is 
either  a  nature  too  impetuous,  or  too  close,  to  let  any 
divine  movement  have  play  in  it.  The  preacher  must 
be  a  very  different  kind  of  man ;  one  who  can  be  uni- 
fied with  God  by  his  faith,  and  go  into  preaching  not 
as  a  calling  but  a  call ;  one  who  can  do  more  than  get 
up  notions  about  God,  and  preach  the  notions ;  one 
who  knows  God  as  he  knows  his  friend,  and  by  close- 
ness of  insight  gets  a  Christly  meaning  in  his  look,  a 
divine  quality  in  his  voice,  action  visibly  swayed  by 
unknown  impulse,  imaginations  that  are  apocalyptic, 
beauty  of  feeling  not  earthly,  authority  flavored  by 
heavenly  sanctity  and  sweetness,  argument  that 
breaks  out  in  flame,  asserting  new  premises  and  ferti- 
lizing old  ones  more  by  what  is  put  into  them  than 
by  what  is  deduced  from  them.  Such  a  man  can  be 
God's  prophet ;  that  is  to  say,  he  can  preach. 

In  this  view  it  is  important  to  add  that  many  per- 
sons having  this  high  talent  will  not,  or  may  not,  for 
a  long  time,  know  it.  The  inspiration  must  be  devel- 
oped before  either  they  or  others  are  apprised  of  the 
capability.     Hence  it  is  almost  never  included,  when 


206  PULPIT    TALENT. 

we  make  up  our  account  of  this  or  that  man's  talent 
for  the  pulpit.  For  aught  that  appears,  the  candidate 
may  be  a  Savonarola,  a  Bunyan,  or  a  Whitefield,  but 
we  have  no  conception  of  the  fact,  and  never  can  have, 
till  the  inspiration  takes  him,  and  his  quality  is  re- 
vealed. Not  even  Luther  was  any  so  prodigiously 
gifted  person  till  he  broke  into  God's  liberty,  and  by 
faith  became  his  prophet.  And  then  a  great  part  of 
his  sublimity  lay  in  that  awful  robustness  of  nature 
that  could  be  so  tremendously  kindled  by  God's  inspi- 
rations, burning  on,  still  on,  in  a  grand  volcanic  con- 
flagration of  faculty,  yet  never  consumed. 

There  is  yet  another  talent  to  be  set  in  our  inven- 
tory, the  reality  and  real  supereminence  of  which  I 
do  not  doubt,  but  which  still  I  know  not  how  to  name 
or  describe  as  exactly  as  I  could  wish.  Man  is  a  nature 
none  the  less  profoundly  mysterious  to  us  because  we 
are  men  ourselves,  and  this  is  the  preeminently  mys- 
terious talent.  It  is  what  our  language  began,  ages 
ago,  to  call  a  man's  a^V,  and  which  now,  since  that 
figure  has  been  spoiled  by  resolving  the  felt  impres- 
sion of  airs  into  mere  external  manner  and  carriage, 
we  are  trying  to  call  a  man's  atmo^fliere^  regarding  it 
as  the  mysterious  efflux,  exhalation,  aerial  develop- 
ment of  his  personality. 

We  appear  to  have  some  reference  in  the  word  to 
the  fact  that  natural  substances  or  bodies  throw  off 
emanations  that  represent  their  quality,  and  create  a 
circumambiency,   or  sphere  of    aroma   about   them. 


PULPIT    TALENT,  207 

Not  all  bodies  do  it ;  rocks,  ice-cakes,  autumnal  flowers, 
have  no  such  talent  of  aroma.  Some  bodies,  again, 
make  a  bad  atmosphere,  and  some  a  good,  the  former 
class  affecting  us  disgustfully,  the  latter  attractively. 
These  latter,  too,  will  be  in  all  degrees  of  power  and 
diffusive  capacity.  The  violets  will  breath  their  aroma 
modestly  and  make  a  tiny  atmosphere.  The  mignon- 
nette  and  the  sandal-wood  will  throw  themselves  out 
farther  and  fill  a  wider  circle.  The  orange-tree,  or  the 
forest  of  bay,  will  spread  its  welcome  sphere  far  out 
at  sea,  flavoring  whole  leagues  by  its  breath.  We 
must  not  omit  also  to  observe  that  these  atmospheres 
of  objects,  whether  good  or  bad,  have  an  almost  abso- 
lute power.  It  is  not  for  us  to  choose  whether  we  will 
be  affected  by  them  or  not ;  for  they  have  us  at  a 
great  advantage,  and  will  do  the  disgusting  or  the 
attractive  upon  us  very  much  at  their  will. 

It  is  remarkable  how  far  this  analogy  holds  respect- 
ing men.  A  certain  class,  otherwise  highly  gifted 
and  qualified  by  the  finest  accomplishments,  make  no 
atmosphere  any  more  than  a  stone  or  an  egg.  You 
have  their  totality  in  what  your  eye  or  ear  takes  in, 
and  they  never  make  you  think  of  any  mysterious, 
unknown  quality  that  inspheres  them  and  flavors  them 
to  your  feeling.  What  success  these  autumn-born 
souls  will  have  in  preaching  it  is  not  difficult  to  see ; 
and  here  it  is  that  we  get  our  solution  of  those 
thousand  and  one  cases  of  failure,  where  there  seemed 
beforehand  to  be  so  much  of  merit  and  of  genuine 
promise.     No  matter  what  amount  of  merit  one  may 


208  PULPIT    TALENT. 

have,  whether  in  himself  or  in  his  sermon,  if  he  does 
not  make  an  atmosphere  he  is  nothing. 

Much  worse  and  more  hopeless  is  the  candidacy 
that  makes  only  a  bad  or  disagreeable  atmosphere. 
Thus  you  will  sometimes  enter  a  room,  where  you 
encounter  a  stranger,  and  the  moment  your  eyes  fall 
upon  him  a  kind  of  revulsion  seizes  you.  You  can- 
not tell  why ;  he  is  not  badly  dressed,  does  not  ap- 
pear to  be  vicious,  has  no  particular  features  that  are 
bad  enough  to  be  remarkable ;  yet  he  fills  you  some- 
how with  uneasiness  and  an  inexpressible  dread. 
Sometiines  there  will  be  a  forward  man  in  a  church, 
who,  without  doing  anything  specially  bad,  and  even 
contributing  much  to  its  advancement,  will  yet  finally 
quite  kill  it  by  his  oppressive,  suffocating  atmosphere. 
Imagine  now  some  person  such  as  these,  or  only  less 
disagreeable,  appearing  before  an  audience  to  assume 
the  preaching  office.  His  studies  are  completed,  not 
without  honor,  and  his  Christian  repute  is  clear  of 
scandal.  He  fails  utterly,  and  many  cannot  account 
for  it.  It  was  as  if  he  had  run  upon  some  prejudice ; 
and  it  was  true,  because  he  raised  a  prejudice  at  once 
against  himself.  Somehow  there  is  a  revulsion,  but 
nobody  charges  the  revulsion  to  any  particular  offense 
in  his  look  or  manner.  Probably  nothing  more  defi- 
nite was  thought  than  that  he  was  somehow  disagree- 
able. For, — alas  that  we  must  say  it !  some  very 
pious  people  are  yet  very  disagreeable.  It  is  not 
because  their  piety  does  not  do  what  it  can  to  create 
a  favorable  atmosphere  of  impression  for  them,  but 


PULPIT    TALENT.  209 

that  it  is  not  strong  enough  as  yet  to  master  the 
repulsive,  pitifully  bad  atmosphere  of  their  natural 
character. 

Again,  there  are  some  of  the  good  atmospheres,  or 
such  as  are  not  bad,  which  are  disqualifications  in  the 
preacher.  One  carries  about  with  him,  for  example, 
the  inevitable  literary  atmosphere,  and  a  shower-bath 
on  his  audience  could  not  more  effectually  kill  the 
sermon.  Another  preaches  out  of  a  scientific  atmos- 
phere, which  is  scarcely  better;  another  out  of  a 
philosophic,  which  is  even  worse ;  for  no  human  soul 
is  going  either  to  be  pierced  for  sin,  or  to  repent  of 
it,  scientifically ;  and  as  little  is  any  one  going  to  be- 
lieve, or  hope,  or  walk  with  God,  or  be  a  little  child, 
philosophically.  No  man  ever  becomes  a  really  great 
preacher  who  has  not  the  talent  of  a  right  and  gen- 
uinely Christian  atmosphere. 

Now  what  we  mean,  as  in  strict  scientific  concep- 
tion, by  this  matter  of  ail  atmosphere,  I  will  not  over- 
positively  say.  If  we  call  it  the  moral  aroma  of  char- 
acter, or  if  we  call  it  the  magnetic  sphere  of  the 
person,  we  only  change  the  figure,  but  do  not  resolve 
the  fact.  Perhaps  we  make  a  little  advance  if  we 
ascribe  the  fact  to  the  expression  of  the  person ;  that 
is,  to  the  voice,  color,  feature,  manner,  and  general 
soul-play  represented  in  them ;  still  we  can  never  tell 
precisely  what  and  where  the  expression  is.  If  it  is 
imagined  or  objected  that  what  we  are  calling  an 
atmosphere  is  in  fact  only  the  same  thing  over  again 
that  we  have  called  an  inspiration,  that  can  at  most 


210  PULPIT    TALENT. 

be  true  only  in  part ;  for  we  feel  it  consciously  as 
being  something  which  is  natural  endowment  in  the  per- 
son, and  belongs,  at  least  in  part,  to  the  spiritual 
proprium  of  his  personal  habit  and  quality. 

After  all,  we  only  seem  to  know  that  the  person 
having  a  good  or  bad  atmosphere  plays  himself,  some- 
how, or  by  some  subtle  talent,  into  others,  by  and 
through  their  imagination ;  whereupon  they  conceive 
him  with  a  halo,  an  air,  an  atmosphere  about  him. 
He  raises  great  imaginations  in  souls,  and  by  these, 
blazing  as  q.  flame-element  in  them, — not  in  him,  but 
in  themselves, — they  are  made  to  see  in  him  a  flame, 
a  glory,  a  kind  of  circumambient  quality,  more  diffu- 
sive than  his  person ;  so  he  inspheres,  and  so  indomi- 
nates.  No  great  power  is  ever  felt  in  mankind  which 
does  not  take  them  by  their  imagination ;  and  this, 
at  bottom,  is  what  we  mean  by  a  man's  atmosphere. 
Hence  the  fact  that  no  great  commander  is  extem- 
porized or  provided  ready-made.  He  must  have  time 
to  work  imaginations  into  play  and  make  his  atmos- 
phere. By  his  victories  he  must  spread  the  horizon 
of  his  life  and  authority,  till  he  takes  in  senates  and 
states  and  legions  trailing  on  to  the  fight,  and  be- 
comes a  one-man  circumambiency,  vast  enough  to  fill, 
if  I  may  so  speak,  the  solar  spaces  above  and  wide 
geographic  spaces  below,  as  between  the  Mississippi 
and  the  sea,  dominating  as  by  spell  in  the  thousands 
of  commanders,  setting'  fast  the  courage,  steadying 
the  wheel,  lifting  the  tramp  of  their  columns,  pour- 
ing them  down  into  rivers  and  over  into  fortresses, 


PULPIT    TALENT.  211 

and  on  through  vast  regions  of  swamp  and  forest, 
harnessed  all  to  him,  a  thousand  miles  away,  and 
campaigning  for  him  in  the  punctual  order  of  the  sun. 
In  this  manner,  having  gotten  hold  of  imaginations 
enough,  and  become  an  atmosphere  of  dominating 
sway  vast  enough,  behold  the  great  general  is  born ! 
So  grand  a  thing,  in  the  scale  of  it,  is  the  gestation 
process  by  which  an  atmosphere  is  sometimes  created. 

All  great  preachers  get  their  power,  in  the  long 
run,  by  a  similar  process.  The  gift  is  partly  natural, 
as  being  a  great  soul  gift,  and  for  the  rest,  is  a  great 
soul  development  in  and  through  and  upon  the  im- 
aginative sense  of  other  souls.  In  that  manner  the 
greatest,  highest,  most  necessary  of  all  preaching 
endowments, — who  of  us  shall  have  it  ?  Ah !  this 
question  of  preaching :  it  is  nothing,  I  may  almost 
say,  but  the  question  of  an  atmosphere.  Academic 
attainments,  standing,  talents,  are  valuable,  but  the 
possibility  of  a  grand  high  atmosphere  signifies  more. 

Enter  the  great  assembly,  for  example,  where  young 
Summerfield  is  giving  his  call  and  testimony,  and 
there  is  a  power  upon  you  which  it  is  the  highest 
luxury  and  dearest  blessing  of  the  earth  to  feel.  You 
know  not  where  it  is,  but  clearly  it  is  not  in  the  words 
spoken.  There  is  a  something  about  the  man  which 
fills  you  with  a  sense  of  mystery.  There  is  incense 
here  and  the  smell  of  sacrifice.  The  man  is  nothing, 
and  his  atmosphere  every  thing.  It  fills  the  whole 
concavity,  from  the  rafters  downward  to  the  floor ; 
nay,  it  presses  the  walls  and  issues  from  the  doors. 


212  PULPIT    TALENT. 

To  be  there,  insphered  in  the  sacred  aroma  of  that 
pure  soul,  is  a  kind  of  converting  ordinance,  apart 
from  all  power  of  words. 

•/^■The  example  of  Dr.  Channing  is  different,  but  sinr- 

/  gularly  impressive.     We  look  in  vain  for  any  highest 

force  in  his  sermons.     To  be  frank,  they  do  not  seem 

^o  really  preach  at  all,  as  being  God's  calls  to  faith 
and  salvation  by  the  cross  of  his  Son.  They  are 
ethically  conceived,  and  not  evangelically.  If  we  talk 
of  argument,  they  are  honest  and  faithful,  but  not 
specially  robust.  Where  then  was  the  power  ?  For 
there  certainly  was  a  most  grandly  impressive  power 
in  his  pulpit  efforts.  It  consisted,  I  conceive,  to  a 
very  great  extent,  in  his  personal  atmosphere.  No 
one  could  argue  with  him,  because  every  one  was 
obliged  to  feel  him.  The  subdued  manner,  the  keen- 
edged,  quivering  delicacy  of  his  moral  perceptions, 
the  unqualified  honesty  of  the  man,  sanctified  by  his 
profoundly  tender,  always  delicate  reverence  toward 
God,  made  the  atmosphere  of  the  place  sensational, 
and  no  one  was  permitted  to  choose  whether  he  would 
be  impressed  or  not. 

And  what  shall  we  imagine  concerning  the  personal 
atmosphere  of  that  wonderful  being  who  spake  as 
never  man  spake  ?  It  was  not  his  look,  nor  his 
declamation,  nor  his  fine  periods  ;  it  was  not  even  his 
prodigious  weight  of  matter ;  but  it  was  tlie  sacred 
exhalation  of  his  quality,  the  aroma,  the  auroral  glory 
of  his  person :  this  it  was  that  quelled  the  marshal 
and  his  posse,  and  sent  them  back  to  make  return,  not 


PULPIT    TALENT.  213 

that  he  could  not  be  found,  but  that  he  was  too  great 
and  awe-inspiring  to  allow  the  touch  of  their  hands ! 
And  here,  let  us  dare  to  say  it,  were,  in  a  certain  high- 
est view,  the  significance  and  glory  of  his  life.  He 
took  the  human  person  to  exhale  an  atmosphere  of 
God  that  should  fill,  and  finally  renew,  the  creation, 
bathing  all  climes  and  times  and  ages  with  its  date- 
less, ineradicable  power ;  so  that,  having  made  even 
the  world  sensational  from  that  time  forth,  he  could 
say,  with  a  confidence  how  beautifully  modest  and 
true  :  "  I  have  glorified  thee  on  the  earth." 

Now,  this  particular  talent,  above  all  others,  we 
must  note,  is  the  special  condition  of  pulpit  excel- 
lence. Much  will  often  be  accomplished  in  the  sen- 
ate by  a  speaker  whose  personal  atmosphere  is  for- 
bidding or  repulsive.  One  of  the  most  powerful 
advocates  we  have  ever  had  at  the  bar  was  a  man 
whose  air  was  brutal  enough  and  low  enough  in 
depravity,  I  may  almost  say,  to  raise  a  smell  of  dis- 
gust. The  poet  Young  has  conquered  somehow  a 
position  of  eminence,  in  spite  of  the  really  disagree- 
able atmosphere  of  his  mock  sententious  declamations. 
Byron  had  two  atmospheres, — a  naturally  noble  and 
high,  and  a  morally  low  and  repulsive.  The  same 
was  partly  true  of  Burns.  And  they  both  obtain,  it 
may  be,  even  the  greater  power  that  they  carry  an 
atmosphere  so  interestingly  bad.  The  talent,  in  short, 
of  a  good,  great  atmosphere,  is  nowhere  else  a  neces- 
sity so  nearly  absolute  as  in  preaching.  Only  here  it 
needs  to  be  observed,  lest  one  fall  into  mistake,  that 


214  PULPIT    TALENT. 

sometimes  a  man  will  be  found  to  have  really  the 
finer  and  more  potent  atmosphere,  just  because  at 
first  he  seems  to  have  none  at  all ;  that  is,  because  he 
is  so  crisp  and  clear  as  not,  for  the  time,  to  put  us 
thinking  of  any  thing  but  his  crystal  voice  and  his  very 
naked  words.  The  prophets,  for  example,  were  the 
old  time  preachers,  and  Isaiah  had  the  atmosphere  of 
June  ;  and  Jeremiah  the  tearful,  tender,  glittering 
softness  of  April.  Then  comes  Ezekiel ;  and  we 
think  he  is  mere  January.  He  thumps  and  crepitates 
in  his  hard,  metallic  periods,  and  saying  nothing  of 
his  exhalations,  he  appears  to  be  rather  frosted  about, 
even  as  the  auroral  giants  of  the  North,  galloping 
across  their  hyperborean  icebergs,  appear  to  shimmer 
and  quiver  in  their  frozen  element  of  sky ;  and  yet, 
as  the  metallic  ring  of  his  strange,  bare  style  con- 
tinues, we  begin  to  feel  that  he  is  bolting  in  a  state  of 
bare  conviction,  more  rigidly  firm,  more  consciously 
indivertible,  because  it  is  the  clear  January  cold  of 
God's  truth.  These  clear,  cold-feeling,  bracing  at- 
mospheres are  many  times  even  more  effective,  as 
regards  certain  impressions,  than  any  other  which 
may  seem  to  be  more  nearly  aromatic. 

There  is  yet  one  other  talent  which  I  may  not  hesi- 
tate to  call  a  preaching  talent,  though  it  does  not 
relate  immediately  to  success  in  preaching,  but  only 
indirectly.  When  we  speak  of  a  talent  for  preaching, 
and  of  talented  preachers,  we  must  not  stop  at  the 
mere  matter  of  speaking,  or  of  what  is  spoken,  but  we 
must  also  think  of  an  ability  to  get  on,  carry  on,  win 


PULPIT    TALENT.  215 

a  confidence  by  success  in  a  cause.  Our  preacher, 
therefore,  is  not  a  mere  public  speaker, — far  from  that 
as  possible, — but  he  is  to  have  a  capacity  of  being  and 
doing ;  an  administrative,  organizing  capacity;  a 
power  to  contrive  and  lead,  and  put  the  saints  in  work, 
and  keep  the  work  aglow,  and  so  to  roll  up  a  cause  by 
ingatherings  and  careful  incrementations.  The  suc- 
cess and  power  of  the  preacher,  considering  his  fixed 
settlement  in  a  place,  will  not  seldom  depend  even 
more  on  a  great  administrative  capacity  than  it  will 
on  his  preaching.  And  with  good  reason,  for  it  really 
takes  more  high  manhood,  more  wisdom,  firmness, 
character,  and  right-seeing  ability,  to  administer  well 
in  the  cause,  than  it  does  to  preach  well.  No  matter 
what  seeming  talent  there  may  be  in  the  preaching,  if 
there  is  no  administrative,  then  the  man  is  a  boy,  and 
the  boy  will  have  a  boy's  weight, — nothing  more.  On 
the  other  hand,  being  a  true  man,  able  to  be  felt  by 
his  manly  direction,  his  mediocrity  in  the  sermon  will 
be  made  up  by  respect  for  his  always  right-seeing 
activity.  In  this  office  then  of  preaching,  one  of  the 
very  highest  talents  demanded  is  an  administrative 
talent.  Every  preacher  wants  it  even  more  than  he 
w^ould  in  the  governing  of  a  state  ;  and  yet  how  many 
of  our  young  preachers  rush  out  on  the  beginning  of 
their  work,  as  if  holding  the  preaching  stand  on  Sun- 
days were  to  be  the  test  of  every  thing.  This  very 
dull  matter  of  administration, — let  those  who  will  de- 
scend to  it, — is  not  for  them.  And  the  result  will  be, 
in  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  that  nothing  is  for  them,  but 


216  PULPIT    TALENT. 

a  mortifying  disappointment  and  a  terrible  correction 
of  their  greenness.  Now  it  happens  that  a  good  many 
young  men,  who  have  other  talents  in  but  a  moderate 
degree,  could  greatly  excel  in  the  organizing,  admin- 
istrative department,  and  could  so  even  up  the  scale 
of  faculty  as  to  command  great  power  and  influence. 
An  advantage  so  great  they  cannot  afford  to  lose.  On 
the  other  hand,  let  any  one  most  gifted  turn  himself 
away  from  the  work  of  a  bishop  at  this  point,  and  he 
will  assuredly  make  anything  but  a  successor  of  the 
apostles.  Even  Paul  himself  would  have  to  drop  off 
all  the  honors  of  his  epistles,  and  would  only  be  that 
mere  "  babbler,"  which  the  Athenians,  or  that  god 
"  Mercury,"  which  the  stupid  Lycaonians  took  him  to 
be. 

There  is  then,  as  I  now  at  last  conclude,  a  much 
greater  number  of  talents  concerned  in  the  matter  of 
preaching  than  some  of  us  are  wont  to  suppose.  The 
canonical  forms  are  not  all.  The  inventory  is  a  large 
one,  and  might  even  be  much  farther  extended.  But 
my  practical  object  is  gained,  if  I  have  only  been  able 
to  raise  some  fit  impression  of  the  very  great  diversi- 
ties of  gifts  that  are  related,  in  as  many  colors  and 
degrees,  to  the  equipment  of  a  successful  preacher.  It 
does  not  follow  that  being  short  in  this  or  that  will  be 
fatal,  or  that  being  first  in  many  things  greatly  es- 
teemed is  any  sure  pledge  of  success.  All  that  we 
can  say  is,  that  the  general  cast  of  the  man  must  con- 
tain possibilities  enough  to  make. up  the  needed  endow- 


PULPIT    TALENT.  217 

ment.  Some  very  good  candidates  will  be  rated  low 
for  a  time  in  the  scale  of  promise ;  and  some  will 
be  rated  high,  because  of  certain  attainments  and 
tokens,  who  will  finally  be  discovered  to  have  only  the 
meagerest,  poorest  kind  of  nature,  such  as  almost 
wants  a  soul.  Meantime  the  poor  distracted  people 
are  fooling  themselves  in  continual  misjudgments,  and 
wondering  why  they  are  so  unfortunate.  Their  dia- 
mond, after  all,  is  only  a  big  stone.  They  rushed  to 
the  post-office,  sending  out  their  paper  missives  all 
over  the  land,  asking  for  the  diamonds,  but  they  drew 
the  picture  so  big  that  they  could  only  be  great  bowl- 
ders, and  they  are  surprised  to  find  that  the  particular 
bowlder  they  got  is  no  diamond  at  all !  They  did  not 
remember  that  these  finest  of  the  gems  are  the  most 
modest  in  size,  and  likeliest  to  be  found,  when  they 
are  simple  enough  to  only  look  after  a  broom  for  the 
sweeping  of  their  houses.  If  then  our  immense  over- 
talk  about  pulpit  talent,  or  preaching  talent,  is  still  to 
go  on,  let  us  at  least  contrive  to  include  something 
more  adequate  in  it  than  we  seen  to  have  been  doing 
heretofore.  We  have  too  many  young  men  of  real 
capacity  in  points  one  side  of  our  common  canonical 
tests,  that  we  cannot  afford  to  crush,  or  to  have 
crushed  in  this  way;  and  the  look  of  nonsense  we 
inflict  on  religion  itself,  by  the  feeble  impertinence  of 
our  pulpit  ambitions  and  standards  of  prognostication, 
can  still  less  be  afforded. 

Let  me  add,  as  I  close,  a  few  words  of  friendly 


218  PULPIT    TALENT. 

advice  to  the  classes  most  concerned  in  the  illustra- 
tions I  have  presented.  It  may  be  that  some  of  you, 
who  are  already  entered  on  the  preaching  office,  begin 
to  suffer  many  very  gloomy  misgivings  and  liard 
rebuffs  of  discouragement. 

You  went  forth,  months  or  years  ago,  it  may  be, 
in  the  conceit  of  your  superlative  standing,  and 
hung  your  flaunting  colors  out  as  challenges  of 
your  expected  victory,  and  now  you  begin  to  feel 
that  your  talent,  after  all,  is  somehow  fatally  deficient. 
It  may  be,  or  it  may  not.  Be  not  hasty  in  accepting 
the  conclusion.  Possibly  the  mere  conceit  you  suf- 
fered has  blocked  your  talents  hitherto,  and  when  it  is 
cured,  so  that  you  can  take  your  place  in  true  humility, 
they  will  come  out  in  a  power  that  even  astonishes 
yourself.  Conceit  is  the  bane  of  faith,  and  where 
there  is  no  faith  the  possibility  of  power  is  barred. 

Some  of  you,  again,  are  just  now  standing  at  the 
gate  and  waiting  to  go  forth.  Your  studies  are  con- 
cluded, but  not  with  much  token  of  success.  Hith- 
erto you  have  not  discovered  the  talents  that  appear  to 
be  indispensable.  Your  friends  do  not  flatter  you,  and 
you  see  not  how  to  flatter  yourself.  Your  heart  sinks 
in  discouragement.  Do  not  think  so  meanly  of  your- 
self that  you  cannot  be  yourself.  There  may  be  some- 
thing in  you  that  neither  you  nor  your  friends  have 
discovered ;  something  that  must  come  out  slowly,  in 
a  way  of  holy  conflict,  and  yet  will  come.  Remember 
also,  as  a  law  of  the  talents,  that  any  one  of  them 
waked    into    power   wakes    the    talent   next  to    it. 


PULPIT     TALENT.  219 

and  that  in  like  manner  another,  till  finally  the  whole 
circle  wakes  into  power,  and  it  thunders  all  round  the 
sky.  Wlien  the  conscience  that  was  only  half  awake 
is  fully  roused  by  tlie  Spirit  of  God,  as,  when  tlie  time 
arrives,  it  may  be,  then  the  faith-talent  leaps  out,  as 
it  were  new-born,  to  seize  on  the  knowledge  of  God 
and  climb  into  the  fullness  of  his  peace.  Then  comes 
inspiration  ;  with  that,  courage.  Now  the  imagination 
is  aglow,  and  hidden  forces  before  unknown  burst  into 
power.  So  it  was  with  Luther,  so  with  Chalmers,  and 
so  proportionally  it  may  be  with  natures  of  a  humbler 
mold.  No  man  knows  what  endowments  he  may  have 
unfolded  when  the  fit  crisis  arrives.  Let  us  then 
heroically  hope  and  patiently  wait.  Perliaps  we  shall 
some  time  find  that  we  have  more  and  better  talents 
than  we  thought. 

Besides,  there  is  another  and  holier  ground  of 
encouragement  for  us  all.  Christ,  our  master,  he  that 
gives  us  our  message  and  our  call,  was  himself  a  com- 
plete man,  liaving  all  the  talents  we  have  named,  and 
all  others  beside,  that  belong  to  the  ideally  perfect 
human  mind.  What  we  therefore  want  is  not  to  go 
hunting  our  poor  nature  through,  that  we  may  find 
what  is  slumbering  in  us  waiting  to  be  somehow 
waked.  But  the  grand  first  thing,  or  chief  concern 
for  us  is,  to  be  simply  Christed  all  through,  filled  in 
every  faculty  and  member  with  his  Christly  manifes- 
tation,— in  that  manner  to  be  so  interwoven  with  him 
as  to  cross  fibre  and  feel  throughout  the  quickening 
contact  of  his  personality  ;  and  then  every  thing  in  us. 


220  PULPIT     TALENT. 

no  matter  what,  will  be  made  the  most  of,  because  the 
corresponding  Christly  talent  will  be  playing  divinely 
with  it,  and  charging  it  with  power  from  himself. 
Not  that,  even  tlins,  every  one  is  called  to  be  a  great 
preacher,  or  indeed  any  preacher  at  all,  but  the  fact 
that  one  finds  himself  able  to  be  thus  opened  to  Christ, 
and  gloriously  empowered  by  union  with  him,  very 
nearly  amounts  to  a  call,  as  it  does  to  the  needful 
endowment.  Be  it  invalid,  or  woman,  or  old  man, 
or  boy,  he  must  and  will  be  somehow  vehicle  and  tongue 
and  gospel  for  his  Master. 


VII. 

TEAINING  rOE  THE  PriPIT  MANWAED  * 


Regret  is  frequently  expressed  and  sometimes  won- 
der, that  so  many  preachers,  qualified  apparently  by 
much  talent  and  culture,  fail  so  miserably  in  getting 
any  vital  connection  with  men,  or  their  people.  And 
we  make  short  work  of  the  mystery  often,  by  saying 
that  they  have  not  nature  enough  in  them  to  get  hold 
of  nature  in  others ;  though  a  better  and  more  true 
solution  would  be,  that  they  fail  of  any  vital  connec- 
tion or  power  to  gain  it,  because  they  have  no  such 
Christian  nearness  to  men  or  vitalized  interest  in 
them,  as  begets  a  vitally  responsive  interest.  Nobody 
imagines  that  men  will  be  morally  quickened  by  words 
spoken  through  a  fire-trumpet ;  neither  will  they  any 
more,  by  the  words  of  a  man  who  is  equally  brassy  and 
not  more  humanly  alive.  But  where  there  is  a  soul 
vitalized  in  feeling,  where  the  look,  the  action,  the 
man,  bespeaks  a  living  and  true  interest  in  the  per- 
sons addressed,  they  must  be  somehow  less  than 
human  not  to  be  quickened  responsively.     When  the 

^Delivered  at  the  Anniversary  of  the  Theological  School  of 

Chicago,  in  1868. 

(221) 


222  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

true  live  magnet  is  thrust  into  a  bag  of  iron-sand,  it 
will  come  out  with  innumerable  adherents  festooning 
round  its  neck,  and  clinging  fast  to  it,  because  it  is 
clinging  fast  to  them.  But  the  dead  magnet  clinging 
to  nobody  will  have  nobody  clinging  to  it. 

The  failures  we  lament  then  must  be  referrible  to 
some  lack  in  the  preachers  of  nearness  to,  or  human- 
ized perception  of  men.  The  manward  faculty  is 
somehow  undeveloped,  or  too  scantily  developed,  to 
bring  them  into  their  place  among  men  and  prepare 
them  to  act  their  part  effectively.  And  this  very 
practical  matter  it  is  that  I  propose  to  consider  on  the 
present  occasion  ;  stating  briefly  first,  the  causes  of  the 
fact ;  and  then,  more  carefully,  by  what  kind  of  train- 
ing  and  self-exercise  the  necessary  interest  in  men 
may  be  duly  unfolded  and  quickened. 

As  regards  the  causes  of  the  fact  in  question,  it 
needs  to  be  somewhere  noted,  that  the  unworldly 
position  of  the  preacher,  qualified  by  no  specially  coun- 
teractive grace,  will  itself,  and  often  does,  separate 
Mm  so  far  from  his  fellow- men  as  to  make  him  a  man 
quite  one  side  of  life.  Hence  the  abundant  satire  put 
upon  the  clergy  so  called,  as  being  ignorant  of  men, 
living  a  dry  kind  of  life,  out  of  contact  with  the  world, 
and  practically  unqualified  for  any  manly  part  in  the 
going  on  of  human  affairs.  The  lawyer  conforms  to 
the  world  and  is  of  it,  and  the  preacher,  not  allowed 
to  be,  loses  just  so  much  of  interest  in  it,  or  capacity 
to  be  a  part  of  it ;  unless,  coming  down  upon  it  in  the 
living  charities  of  heaven,  he  takes  hold  thus  again  of 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  223 

all  he  has  let  go,  to  be  wiser  and  more  alive  in  it  than 
ever ;  more  respected  in  his  judgments  and  every  way 
more  vitally  felt  as  a  man.  There  is  a  most  real  dan- 
ger here, but  the  remedy  it  is  not  difficult  to  find. 

But  the  inability  we  speak  of  is  due,  in  a  different 
way,  to  a  large  variety  of  causes,  among  which  I  name, 
first  of  all,  a  deficiency  in  the  natural  gifts  of  address. 
Some  persons  have  a  wondrous  felicity  in  this  respect. 
They  have  large  true  sympathies.  They  fall  in 
always,  somehow,  at  the  dew-point  of  favor,  and  set 
every  sensibility  a-dripping  with  the  wet  of  their  moist 
kinship  and  life.  They  are  beautifully  considerate, 
therefore  considered.  They  confide  and  are  con- 
fided in.  They  are  friendly  and  make  friends. 
Such  persons  have  a  great  natural  advantage  in 
this  kind  of  gift,  though,  as  we  shall  see  by  and  by, 
it  is  no  sufficient  guarantee  of  a  permanently  vital  and 
effective  hold  by  itself.  Others,  who  have  greatly 
hiferior  natural  gifts  in  this  respect,  have  yet  such  as 
are  capable  of  great  enlargement  by  culture,  and  such 
as,  being  duly  unfolded  by  the  necessary  Christian 
inspirations,  will  even  put  them  in  advance  of  the  class 
just  named.  They  will  have  a  supernatural  felicity, 
all  the  more  perfect  that  it  is  felt  to  be  not  entirely 
natural.  And  all  that  I  am  going  to  say,  on  this 
occasion,  will  have  its  value  principally  in  the  encour- 
agement given  to  such-  For  there  are  one  or  tv\  o 
classes  of  natures  more  unfellow  still,  that  will  never 
be  much  advanced  by  anything.  One,  for  example, 
who  are  too  apathetic  and  dry  to  be  ever  much  quick- 


^ 


'U 


224  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

encd  in  tlic  demonstrative  sympathies  that  are  needed 
to  engage  responsive  sympathies,  who  will  continue 
therefore  to  be  socially  inert  as  now,  and  be  answered 
by  social  inertness ;  even  as  the  corn  that  is  piled 
away  in  the  cribs  to  dry  makes  heaps  of  creature  life 
in  ear  and  kernel,  that  arc  quite  dead  to  the  sense  of 
neighborhood,  or  the  touch  of  any  fellow  sensibility. 
There  is  still  another  class,  v.lio  are  often  taken  by 
their  friends  to  have  a  special  promise,  but  are  even 
more  unhopeful,  as  regards  being  ever  trained  to  a 
genuine,  solid  interest  in  men,  or  a  living  place  among 
them, — such  I  mean  as,  by  their  light  vivacity,  are 
gadding  about  everywhere,  and  pitching  into  every- 
thing on  foot;  a  kind  of  omnipresent, /a<?^o^2<m  people, 
that  cannot  be  escaped.  Their  chaff  is  always  blow- 
ing in  our  faces,  when  we  had  much  rather  have  a 
chance  to  see.  Such  will  hardly  get  to  be  even  men 
of  the  world,  but  will  rather  buzz  themselves  out  of  it, 
than  into  it,  by  the  annoyances  they  create. 

A  second  cause  of  inability  in  the  preacher  to  gain 
a  living  contact  with  men,  or  his  people,  is  to  be 
found  in  a  bad  moral  development,  such  as  makes  him 
at  once  less  capable  of  a  living  interest  in  them, 
and  them  less  capable  of  interest  in  him.  Thus  if 
one  is  seen  to  be  acting  the  sycophant,  if  another  is 
jealous,  scenting  always  visibly  some  disrespect  or 
higher  claim  of  merit,  if  another  is  of  a  plainly  sensual 
habit,  another  pretentious  or  vain  of  his  performances, 
and,  to  make  short  a  catalogue  that  is  long,  if  any  one 
is  unreliable,  irresponsible,  irritable  in  his  tempers, 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  225 

obstinate  in  his  will,  or  what  is  worst  of  all,  practically 
nntrne,  there  will  almost  certainly  he  no  genuine 
heartiness  in  his  devotion  to  them,  and  all  their  gates 
will  even  be  more  certainly  shut  against  him.  For  if 
his  particular  obliquities  are  not  formally  known,  or 
discovered,  the  stamp  of  a  something  sinister,  unti'ust- 
worthy,  and  low,  will  be  felt  upon  him,  and  he  will  be 
too  scantily  respected  to  have  any  considerable  power. 
But  we  have,  again,  three  or  four  hindrances  or 
disqualifications,  that  come  along,  liand  in  hand,  with 
our  ministerial  training  itself  ;  being  false  or  dispro- 
portionate modes  of  interest  in  other  directions,  that 
take  us  q^iite  away  from  all  true  interest  in  men. 
Thus,  brought  together  as  they  are  in  our  seminaries, 
young  men  talk  much,  almost  unavoidably,  of  relative 
standing,  and  the  places  to  be  gotten  by  each  ;  whereby 
the  ambition  for  place  gets  large  development.  Then 
afterwards,  when  our  places  are  taken,  the  same  thing 
still  goes  on,  as  we  see  by  our  frequent  discoveries 
that  we  have  fallen  into  what  we  call  "  uncongenial 
places."  And  then,  as  we  must  have  our  changes,  it 
comes  out  every  week  in  gazette,  that  one  or  another 
preacher,  beginning  to  be  known,  is  going  to  this  or 
that  more  prominent,  that  is,  more  congenial,  place. 
The  people  meantime,  seeing  how  much  it  signifies  to 
be  place,  get  tired  of  being  place  to  second  rate 
preachers,  and  take  their  turn  also  in  pitching  us  down 
descending  grades  that  mortify  us,  and  make  us  more 
discouraged,  and  push  us  farther  away  in  feeling  from 
men,  as  we  are  less  appreciated  by  them.     Or,  if  our 


_5 


226  TRAINING     FOR    THE 

changes  are  all  in  the  ascending  order,  we  are  likely  to 
be  only  so  much  better  pleased  with  ourselves,  and  to 
finally  die  in  our  position  of  prominence,  only  half  as 
much  felt  and  respected  as  if  we  had  died  in  the  first 
little  nest  that  was  given  us.  How  many  die  beside 
of  too  much  place,  before  their  time  arrives, — not  to 
go,  let  us  hope,  to  their  own  place  afterwards. 

Another  infelicity  of  our  training  is,  that  it  often 
begets  a  very  disproportionate  interest  in  the  direction 
of  abstractive  theology.  The  result  is  that  we  are 
taken  quite  away  from  men,  and  become  practically 
unsphered,  or  disabled.  Our  over-abstractive  exer- 
cise has  extirpated  our  most  valuable  sensibilities. 
We  had  a  skin,  and  now  we  have  a  crust.  I  speak 
here  with  the  greater  freedom,  because  I  believe  there 
is  less  of  undue  theologic  tension  in  your  school  than 
elsewhere,  and  because  your  very  scheme  of  terms 
and  studies  proposes,  if  possible,  to  keep  you  in  the 
living  world  and  make  you  a  part  of  it.  Still  there 
is  danger  for  us  all,  that  we  get  stalled  in  abstrac- 
tions, and  dry  up  in  them.  Our  gospel,  if  we  put 
ourselves  to  thinking  out  a  gospel,  will  of  course  be 
a  little  too  completely  ours,  small  of  course,  and  dry, 
and  pebbly,  representing  well  the  tiny  molds  of  our 
own  abstractive  faculty.  And  when  we  go  to  preach 
it,  we  shall  be  looked  upon  rather  as  abstract  men 
than  men  alive, — theologic  lay  figures, sombre,  intro- 
verted, dreary-looking  faces,  beholding  always,  stick- 
ing for  and  as  it  were  becoming  the  inevitable  propo- 
sitions.    There  will  be  a  kind  of  nonsense  look  both 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  227 

in  what  we  are  and  what  we  are  doing,  and  the  dry 
formalities  we  range  in  will  be  like  the  corridors  so 
nicely  flanked  by  the  exactly  piled  bones  of  the  ten 
thousand  virgins  in  the  crypts  of  Cologne.  I  make 
no  objection  here  to  theology.  Abstractions  will  do 
us  no  damage,  if  we  do  not  make  gods  and  finalities 
of  them.  Our  Christian  mind  must  have  them,  it 
would  seem,  for  its  gymnastic.  Neither  could  we 
understand  ourselves,  without  some  articulation  of 
our  thoughts.  The  difficulty  is  that  we  so  easily  lose 
the  sense  of  persons,  or  souls,  and  get  our  whole 
appetite  set  for  propositions,  needing  every  hour  to 
pray  both  God  and  our  teachers  :  "  feed  me  with  food 
convenient  for  me."  If  only  we  had  each  five  hun- 
dred theologies,  just  to  show  us  what  the  true  great 
gospel  is  by  so  many  little  ones  made  out  of  it,  our 
ardor  might  be  sufficiently  checked  to  allow  us  some 
right  interest  in  the  welfare  of  men. 

We  are  likely  also,  in  a  similar  way,  to  have  a 
wholly  disproportionate  interest  awakened  in  subjects, 
as  distinguished  from  men,  or  persons.  As  our  cul- 
ture is  advanced,  and  our  invention  sharpened,  we 
find  a  pleasure  and  sometimes  take  a  pride,  in  raising 
great  subjects,  fine  subjects,  new  subjects.  It  is 
almost  as  good  as  if  we  made  a  gospel  ourselves. 
Our  success  too  attracts  a  certain  admiration.  But 
the  gospel  is  not  for  subjects,  save  as  the  subjects  are 
for  people,  or  souls.  There  are  a  great  many  grand, 
beautiful,  fresh  subjects  in  it, — not  one  too  many,— - 
and  it  is  our  privilege  to  catch  the  hint  of  all  pro- 


228  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

foundest  things  from  the  subtlest  intniiations.  God's 
own  Spirit  too  will  show  us  tenderly  in,  where  the 
mines  of  truth  are  richest  and  least  explored,  that  we 
may  bring  out  ores  and  gems  and  all  best  gifts  for 
his  flock.  But  if  we  care  to  please  ourselves  in  the 
skill  or  beauty  of  our  processes,  if  we  have  any 
interest  in  our  subjects  that  does  not  respect  their 
uses, — ^what  feeling  they  will  kindle,  what  conviction 
raise,  what  comfort  of  God  they  will  bring,  what  they 
will  be,  when  they  have  fallen  off  the  tongue  into  the 
ear,  and  are  lodged  there  in  the  inward  silence, — what 
are  we  doing  in  our  fine  subjects  that  belongs  any  way 
to  our  work  in  the  hearts  of  our  people  ?  And  if  we 
complain  that  by  such  astounding  merits  they  will 
not  be  taken  captive,  is  it  they  that  are  senseless,  or 
we  ?  As  if  by  so  great  skill  in  raising  subjects,  we 
were  going  to  compensate  them  for  making  nothing 
of  their  persons,  or  even  of  their  personal  eternity ! 
Again  our  training  often  makes  us  disproportionally 
^  alive  to  the  matter  of  pulpit  success,  when  we  have 
only  the  tamest  concern  for  men.  We  are  trained, 
in  fact,  to  look  after  and  greatly  value  success.  And 
then,  when  we  take  our  places,  we  are  ready  to  com- 
pliment our  devotion  in  the  felt  intensity  of  our  desire 
to  make  such  advances  in  our  work.  But  there  is  a 
distinction  here  that  we  are  exceedingly  apt  to  miss, 
because  of  the  subtlety  of  it ;  we  are  running  a  mill, 
otherwise  called  a  church,  which  is  ours,  and  we  very 
earnestly  desire  success,  it  may  be,  not  for  the  souls' 
sake  of  the  people,  but  for  the  mill's  sake.     We  put 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  229 

ourselves  into  the  cause  with  great  industry  of  en- 
deavor. We  work  our  sermons  in  the  hardest  way, 
and  preach  them  in  a  way  as  hard, — not  a  whit  harder 
to  us  than  to  the  people, — straining  every  faculty  to 
the  utmost,  and  straining  also  them  by  our  heavy 
objurgations.  What  does  it  mean,  we  say,  that,  when 
we  are  putting  our  lives  into  the  grave,  we  get  no 
sympathy  and  nobody  comes  to  our  help  ?  Never  was 
there  any  Christian  people,  we  think,  so  utterly  dead 
and  destitute  of  care  for  their  Master.  It  is  as  if  we 
were  knocking  at  a  tomb !  But  verily  there  is  no 
wonder  here ;  we  get  no  response,  because  there  is 
nothing  to  respond  to.  We  are  laying  ourselves  out 
for  the  post,  and  not  for  the  people,  and  it  cannot  be 
expected  that  a  post  will  respond.  Our  manner  be- 
sides tells  the  whole  story.  The  fact  is  out  by  the 
laws  of  expression,  when  neither  we  nor  our  people 
think  it.  If  we  were  after  the  men,  if  our  spirit 
yearned  for  the  men,  our  eye,  and  voice,  and  tenderly 
deep  look  of  concernment,  would  be  out,  gathering  in 
all  feeling  responsive  to  our  feeling,  but  since  we 
yearn  only  for  the  mill,  there  is  no  particular  reason 
why  the  men  should  be  moved  by  it.  I  very  much  fear 
that  what  we  call  our  desire  for  the  salvation  of  our 
people,  that  which  wears  our  life  out  so  unsparingly, 
is  really  a  desire  in  a  great  many  more  cases  than  we 
know- to  have  success  for  ourselves.  This  ignis  fatuus 
hovers  all  the  while  about  us,  shallows  our  feeling 
and  beguiles  our  prayers. 


I 


230  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

Wc  come  now  to  the  second  general  department  of 
our  subject,  where  it  is  proposed  to  show,  or  at  least 
to  suggest,  the  methods  by  which  we  may  be  trained 
and  may  train  ourselves  to  a  more  personal,  or  less 
impersonal  kind  of  interest. 

And  first  of  all,  it  must  be  noted,  that  any  due 
interest  in  men  supposes  a  living  observation  of  men. 
Just  here  it  is  that  a  great  many,  falling  into  an 
utterly  heedless  habit,  sink  all  apparent  capacity  of 
sympathy  with  mankind.  We  can  do  something  to 
break  up  such  a  habit,  and  something  also  may  possi- 
bly be  done  for  us.  Let  it  be  understood  that  we  have 
a  wonderfully  fruitful  out-door  lesson  here,  that  is 
always  demanding  our  study.  God  has  given  us  eyes, 
and  we  have  no  right  to  lose  the  benefit  of  eyes.  And 
yet  there  are  thousands  of  men  who  are  really  halved 
in  capacity  all  their  life  long,  because  they  omit  to 
see.  Their  human  feeling  gets  no  play ;  they  miss 
the  possibility  of  living  sympathies ;  they  get  too  far 
stupefied  under  the  world  to  allow  their  ever  knowing 
what  it  is,  or  becoming  a  part  of  it.  What  can  such 
minds  do  in  preaching  a  gospel  ?  No,  the  preacher 
wants  to  be  a  man,  as  truly  as  to  be  a  Christian,  and 
he  will  not  be  much  of  a  Christian  if  he  is  not  a  man. 
He  must  be  out  therefore,  using  sharp  insight  every- 
where, and  looking  deep  down  through  all  the  sinuosi- 
ties and  cunning  varieties  of  the  great  world-pageant 
before  him.  He  must  see  the  men,  the  women,  the 
children,  the  neighborhood,  the  nation,  the  times, 
dramatizing  themselves  in  what  is  called  society.   And 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  231 

it  must  be  no  mere  beholding  of  surfaces,  as  when 
some  animal  looks  on  the  same  things ;  but  there  must 
be  a  looking  far  in,  where  the  eternities  arc.  Great 
instincts  must  be  seen  overtopping  the  summits  of 
pride,  and  squatting  among  the  lowest  vices.  The 
grandeur  of  the  being  must  be  seen  in  the  meanness 
of  the  life.  The  honors  that  are  due  to  principle  must 
be  seen  wriggling  out  under  motivities  that  only  play 
reverence  and  cliaracter.  Everything  must  be  signifi- 
cant ;  the  house,  the  church,  the  scliool,  the  street, 
the  shop ;  Avorks,  voices,  gaits  ;  and,  wliat  is  quite  as 
full  of  revelation,  the  concealments, — all  to  be  con- 
strued in  no  cynical  way,  but  so  lovingly  that  tlie 
bright,  sweet  virtues  will  awaken  no  interest  more 
tender  than  the  virtues  that  are  sick  or  fallen.  Tlie 
observer  has  a  long  inventory  given  him,  and  he  must 
play  all  liis  many-colored  human  sympathies  into  it 
to  bring  out  the  interpretation.  Nobody  can  tell  or 
guess  what  he  will  see,  or  meet,  or  be  overtaken  by, 
going  into  the  street  any  most  common  day  of  tlio 
year.  He  cannot  pass  round  a  block,  without  meeting 
some  revelation  tliat  is  a  complete  chapter  of  life. 
And  this  oi)en-eyed  way  of  living  would  liave  a  won- 
derfully sliarpening,  freshening  power  in  every  one 
who  is  being  trained  for  the  gospel,  if  only  it  were 
faithfully  mai^itained ;  all  the  better  if  lie  Avould 
formally  engage,  when  he  returns  at  night,  to  catechize 
himself  as  to  what  he  has  seen  and  the  meanino:  of 
it ;  better  still  if  friends  would  engage  to  catechize 
each  other ;  and  it  would  not  be  absurd,  if  professors 


»K 


232  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

would  sometimes  drop  the  book-lore  subjects  and 
spring  the  question,  "  What  have  you  seen  to-day  ? " 
And  tlie  answers  gotten,  I  strongly  suspect,  would 
give  a  more  true  indication  of  the  men,  than  any  of 
the  class-work  answers  they  obtain.  One  must  answer, 
that  he  remembers  seeing  nothing  but  his  own  face  in 
the  glass.  Another  will  want  prompting  to  be  sure 
tliat  lie  has  seen  anything.  Another  will  haA^e  seen 
upon  the  street  some  thousands,  probably,  of  faces,  no 
two  of  them  alike,  and  having  all  as  many  thousand 
characters  and  histories  written  upon  them  ;  quite  a 
number  of  which,  as  he  began  to  read  them  in  passing, 
had  excited  a  wonderfully  curious  and  deep  interest. 
A  fourth,  less  discursive,  but  not  less  sharply  percep- 
tive, will  perhaps  only  report  having  seen  a  horseshoe 
nailed  up  over  a  door ;  whereby  he  was  let  into  a  new 
impression  of  superstition,  as  the  underground  fact, 
or  token,  of  man's  religious  nature ;  and  if  he  should 
go  on,  for  answer,  to  bring  out  the  subterranean  work- 
ing of  the  same,  it  must  be  a  very  good  lecture  that 
will  signify  more.  Let  this  living  out-door  observa- 
tion be  kept  up,  and  never  intermitted.  No  man  ever 
is  alive  to  his  kind,  who  does  not  see  them  with  a 
living  eye. 

I  suggest  again,  as  a  matter  closely  related,  the  very 
large,  really  sublime  interest  we  should  get  in  persons, 
or  souls,  in  distinction  from  subjects,  by  putting  the 
mind  down  carefully  on  the  study,  or  due  exploration 
of  sin.  I  do  not  mean  by  this  any  theologic  explora- 
tion, such   as  we  have  reported  in  our  systems,  no 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  233 

questioning  about  the  origin,  or  propagation,  or  totality, 
or  disability,  or  immedicable  guilt  of  sin,  but  a  going 
into  and  through  it  as  it  is,  and  the  strange  wild  work 
it  makes  in  the  intestine  struggles  and  wars  of  the 
mind.  For  it  is  a  fact,  I  fear,  that  we  sometimes  very 
nearly  kill  our  natural  interest  in  persons,  by  just 
bolting  them  down  theologically  into  what  we  call 
death  and  there  making  an  end.  We  clap  an  extin- 
guisher on  them,  in  this  manner,  and  they  drop  out  of 
interest,  just  where  they  become  most  interesting, — 
where  meaning,  and  size,  and  force,  and  depth  of  sor- 
row, and  amount  of  life,  and  everything  fit  to  engage 
our  concern  is  most  impressively  revealed.  Say  no 
more  of  the  dignity  of  human  nature,  here  is  some- 
thing far  beyond  all  that ;  a  wild,  strange  flame  raging 
inwardly  in  that  nature,  that,  for  combinations  of 
great  feeling,  and  war,  and  woe,  is  surpassed  by  no 
tragedy  or  epic,  nor  by  all  tragedies  and  epics  together. 
Here  in  the  soul's  secret  chambers  are  Fausts  more 
subtle  than  Faust,  Hamlets  more  mysterious  than 
Hamlet,  Lears  more  distracted  and  desolate  than  Lear ; 
wills  that  do  what  they  allow  not,  and  what  they 
would  not,  do ;  wars  in  the  members  ;  bodies  of  death 
to  be  carried,  as  in  Paul ;  wild  horses  of  the  mind, 
governed  by  no  rein,  as  in  Plato  ;  subtleties  of  cunning; 
plausibilities  of  seeming  virtues,  memories  writ  in 
letters  of  fire,  great  thoughts  heaving  under  the  brim- 
stone marl  of  revenges,  pains  of  wrong  and  of  sympa- 
thy with  suffering  wrong,  aspirations  that  have  lost 
courage,  hates,  loves,  beautiful  dreams,  and  tears ;  all 


234  TRAINING     FOR    THE 

these  acting  at  cross-purposes  and  representing,  as  it 
were  to  sight,  the  broken  order  of  the  mind.  Getting 
into  the  secret  working,  and  seeing  how  the  drama 
goes  on  in  so  many  mystic  parts,  the  wondrous  life- 
scene, — shall  we  call  it  poetry  ? — takes  on  a  look  at 
once  brilliant  and  pitiful  and  appalling,  and  what  we 
call  the  person  becomes  a  world  of  boundless  capaci- 
ties shaken  out  of  their  law,  energies  in  full  conflict 
and  without  government,  passions  that  are  wild,  sor- 
rows that  are  weak.  By  such  explorations,  never  to 
be  exhausted  by  discovery,  our  sense  of  person,  or 
mind,  or  soul,  is  widely  opened  and  may  always  be 
kept  fresh ;  a  most  necessary  qualification  for  any 
right  seeking  of  men,  such  as  may  obtain  a  living  con- 
nection with  them  in  the  matter  of  their  immortal 
welfare.  It  will  not,  so,  be  subjects  only  that  engage 
us,  but  persons  ;  for  persons  will  have  the  freshest 
meaning,  and  be  thought  of  as  the  deepest  and  most 
fascinating  kind  of  study.  Let  me  venture  a  suggest- 
tion  here  that  reaches  farther;  viz.,  that  if  some 
qualified  teacher,  by  some  ten  or  twenty  years  of 
study,  could  worm  out  a  thoroughly  perceptive  inter- 
pretation of  sin,  or  course  of  lectures  on  the  working 
or  pathology  of  mind  under  evil,  he  would  offer  a  con- 
tribution to  the  true  success  of  Christian  preaching, 
greater  than,  perhaps,  any  human  teacher  has  ever 
3^et  contributed. 

Another  very  important  tiling,  as  regards  training 

^   ourselves  to  a  large  and  vital  interest  in  our  fellow-men, 

is  the  being  earnestly  and  early  engaged  in  efforts  to  do 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  235 

tliem  good.  For  it  is  a  fixed  law  of  the  mind  that  we 
feel  what  we  serve,  and  appreciate,  even  up  to  the 
point  of  enthusiasm,  what  we  long  and  strenuously 
endeavor  to  accomplish.  By  such  practical  tension, 
all  our  powers  are  harnessed  and  put  to  the  drauglit 
together.  And  it  is  a  matter  of  immense  consequence, 
in  this  view,  that  every  one  who  is  preparing  for  the 
Christian  ministry  should  put  himself  into  a  Cln'istian 
way  of  training  for  it,  by  having  on  hand  works  of 
love  and  mercy  to  man  such  as  will  draw  him  into  the 
closest  terms  of  fidelity,  and  kindle  in  his  feeling  the 
highest  enthusiasm.  Mere  scholarhood  is  no  fit  train- 
ing without  this.  Taken  separately  from  this,  it  is 
really  a  training  away  from  qualifications  and  not 
towards  them.  Let  him  go  into  by-places  and  dark 
neighborhoods,  seeking  out  Christ's  poor  and  sick  ; 
drawing  others  out  of  the  wrecks  of  fortune  and  the 
more  appalling  wrecks  of  vice,  by  his  Christian  sym- 
pathy ;  teaching  the  ignorant,  and  especially  bending 
himself  upon  the  neglected  little  ones  of  the  street ; 
knowing  well  that  every  child's  love  wakened  in  his 
bosom  freshens  him  in  the  deepest  springs  of  his  life, 
and  keeps  him  young  in  the  simple  humanities  that 
draw  him  closest  to  his  fellow-men.  All  this  we  say, 
but  we  do  not  often  take  the  force  of  it ;  still  the  works 
we  put  ourselves  upon  are  too  often  only  a  matter  by 
the  way.  The  great  chief  matter  is  tlie  school  and 
what  the  school  will  do  for  us.  No,  no !  The  true 
preacher  needs  even  more  to  be  graduated  at  the  great 
university  of  sorrow  than  here.     Mercies  are  greater 


236  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

tilings  than  notions,  and  here  is  the  place  to  learn  the 
mercies.  These  arc  the  talent  of  the  heart  and  the 
talent  of  the  head  is  not  greater.  And  how  many  of 
our  really  best,  most  i3ungent,  most  effective  preach- 
ers, have  been  almost  wholly  trained  by  their  good 
works,  and  the  human  wants  and  woes  that  engage 
them !  By  these  they  purchase  also  to  themselves  a 
good  degree  ;  much  better  than  some  of  the  degrees 
we  more  frequently  hear  of  and  less  frequently  respect. 
Little  children,  sorrows  of  the  house,  bitter  sorrows  of 
the  street  and  the  saloon, — these  are  their  professors 
and  they  do  their  teaching  well.  Only  be  it  under- 
stood that  every  thing  you  undertake  in  this  schooling 
of  Avork  must  be  heartily  done,  and  never  in  a  way  of 
slackness  that  is  glad  when  the  time  is  up  and  the 
duty  ended ;  for  in  that  way  all  benefit  will  be  reversed 
and  you  will  lose  even  twice  as  much  as  it  was  your 
privilege  to  gain.  One  single  hour  in  a  week,  given 
to  a  Sunday-school  in  this  slack  way  of  merely  formal 
duty,  will  uncreate  more  capacity  for  living  approach 
to  men,  than  six  whole  days  of  seminary  training 
ever  created. 

Thus  far  we  have  been  moving,  for  the  most  part, 
in  the  plane  of  mere  self-exercise.  We  must  now 
ascend  to  the  higher  plane  of  God  and  the  Spirit.  It 
may  seem  paradoxical,  but  it  is  profoundly  true,  that 
if  we  are  to  get  the  highest  possible,  only  true  interest 
in  our  fellow  men,  we  must  go  up  into  God  to  find  it. 
They  are  made  in  his  great  image,  which  signifies  much 
to  him,  though  commonly  not  much  to  us.     We  try 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  237 

to  use  the  fact  sometimes  as  a  theological  magnifier 
of  man,  but  God  feels  it.  And  what  is  peculiar  to 
him,  our  bad  state  under  evil  does  not  abate  his  inter- 
est in  us,  but  rather  seems  to  increase  it.  He  beholds 
the  great  machine  of  retributive  causation,  good  in 
itself,  necessary  even  for  us,  crushing  us,  as  phos- 
phorated bones  are  crushed  in  the  mill,  and  he  does 
not  allow  that  his  Fatherhood  is  measured,  or  was 
ever  to  be,  by  this  grinding  machine  of  causes  that  we 
call  Nature.  If  Nature  and  her  causes  own  him  God, 
there  is  in  him  what  is  more  than  a  mere  Godship  of 
nature,  a  Lamb-side  of  holy  flexibility,  where  he  suffers 
and  sorrows,  and  where,  as  Lamb,  "  he  was  slain  from 
the  foundation  of  the  world ;"  always  engaged,  before 
these  fallen  children  were  made,  to  unlock  the  crea- 
tion's causes  by  suffering,  and  take  them  forth  out  of 
their  sin.  All  which  is  discovered  to  us,  how  sub- 
limely, in  that  closing  stage  of  revelation,  where  the 
throne  of  the  Universe  is  called  no  more  henceforth 
the  throne  of  God,  as  if  he  were  the  God  of  Nature, 
but  the  throne  of  God  and  of  the  Lamb  !"  Deific 
sorrow  or  affliction  then  is  here  to  be  the  power.  ''In 
their  affliction  he  is  afflicted,  and  he  bears  them  and 
carries  them  all  the  days  of  old."  He  brings  out 
leaders  and  prophets  rising  up  early  to  send  them, 
organizes  rites,  draws  out  migrations,  leads  back  cap- 
tivities, and,  when  the  fullness  of  time  is  come,  sends 
forth  his  Son, — all  which  is  opened  to  us  in  its  inmost 
meaning,  when  it  is  declared  :  "  For  God  so  loved  the 
world." 


238  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

Now  therefore  we  are  to  see  in  him,  that  is  in  Jesus, 
what  kind  of  interest  pertains  to  the  lot  and  state  of 
man,  taken  as  a  fallen  personality.  Wonderful  depth 
of  feeling  and  sacrifice, — how  shall  we  compass  it  ? — 
in  the  charities  of  his  burdened  life,  his  sorrow  and 
cross !  He  so  conceives  the  mao-nitude  and  tras^ic 
pain  of  souls  or  persons,  that  he  sinks  all  orders  and 
distinctions  of  men  in  one  level  of  suffering  pity. 
And  he  is  specially  drawn  to  abject  and  low  people, 
because,  understanding  him  quite  as  well,  they  are 
much  less  withdrawn  by  hateful  and  low  prejudices. 
His  great  loving  mind  stoops  to  its  burdens,  and  he 
bears  the  world  as  we  bear  the  weight  of  a  sorrow. 
The  woman  at  the  well  is  sure  that  there  must  be  some 
great  riddle  in  him.  Little  children  are  gathered  to 
him  and  cannot  look  away  from  him.  That  he  gets 
the  blind  man's  heart,  when  he  leads  him  out,  hand  in 
hand,  to  heal  him,  nobody  need  tell  us.  As  little 
need  we  be  told,  that  he  gets  hold  of  another's  when, 
having  healed  him,  he  goes  tenderly  after  him,  cast 
out  for  being  healed, — even  as  some  teacher  of  a  Sun- 
day-school goes  after  the  poor,  much  persecuted  pupil, 
he  has  lately  missed,- — and  leading  him  back,  opens  to 
him  some  of  the  deepest  matters  even,  of  his  great 
Messiahship.  Why  should  not  the  penitent  woman, 
put  in  hope  and  courage  by  his  friendly  words,  wash 
his  feet  with  her  tears  ?  And  would  it  not  be  strange, 
if  the  two  sisters  of  Bethany  were  at  all  less  nearly 
distracted  by  their  tender  hospitalities,  after  he  has 
wept  the  tears  of  Messiahship  with    them  at  their 


PULPIT    MAN  WARD.  239 

brother's  grave  ?  Notice  further  the  significance  of 
his  look,  that  so  much  impressed  the  evangelist,  when, 
surrounded  by  such  forlorn  multitudes  of  sick  and 
diseased  people,  his  feeling  is  described  by  saying,  that 
"  he  was  moved  with  compassion  on  tliem,  because 
they  fainted  and  were  scattered  abroad  as  sheep  liaving 
no  shepherd."  Humble  in  his  figure,  scandalously 
unconventional,  he  is  yet  respected  and  felt  every- 
where. He  touches  the  quick,  so  to  speak,  of  all 
human  sentiment  and  conviction  and  makes  a  contact 
so  pervasive  that  all  incrustations  of  sin  are  pierced. 
Without  a  single  air  of  popularity,  or  any  bait  thrown 
out  to  catch  applause,  he  settles  straightway  into  vital 
connection  with  men,  because  of  the  divine  sorrow 
that  is  in  him ;  and,  thougli  multitudes  of  high  people 
are  offended  in  him,  he  is  the  best  approved,  most  thor- 
oughly felt  man  that  ever  lived. 

Then  follow  the  apostles,  and  especially  Paul,  the 
most  conspicuous  of  them.  And  here  we  are  to  see 
how  he  takes  the  type  of  his  Master,  bearing  the  same 
burden,  and  having  in  it  the  same  call.  There  was 
nothing  of  dear  favor  and  popularity  in  him  naturally. 
He  was  just  now  but  a  fierce  and  fiery  bigot  and  man- 
hunter,  wanting  men's  blood  more  than  their  salvation. 
But  he  had  such  a  burden  rolled  upon  him,  and  such 
an  impression  of  men  wrought  in  him  by  his  call,  that 
the  gaining  a  man  was  now  a  kind  of  supreme  aspira- 
tion of  his  Christed  life.  He  could  not  so  much  as 
trim  a  sentence  to  catch  the  world's  applauses  ;  but 
he  could  be  all  things  to  all  men  himself,  if  by  any 


240  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

means  lie  could  gain  some.  Looked  upon  as  weak  in 
bodily  presence  and  contemptible  in  speech  or  speak- 
ing voice,  he  was  yet  so  deep  in  love  and  was  so  let 
into  the  knowledge  of  men  by  his  urgent  sympathies, 
that  he  took  the  sense  and  rose  to  the  level,  as  in 
Athens,  of  all  highest  culture  and  philosophy,  and  was 
able  thus,  surpassing  art  without  art,  to  make  about 
the  manliest  and,  morally  speaking,  grandest  speech 
that  ever  was  made.  He  was  never  unequal  to  an 
occasion,  even  though  it  was  a  shipwreck  ;  simply 
because  he  had  life  enough  to  put  his  word  into  the 
cargo,  and  the  helm,  and  the  scattered  planks,  and 
the  men. 

In  the  same  way,  all  the  best  preachers  and  pastors, 
coming  after,  got  their  success.  They  had  come  down 
close  enough  to  men,  in  the  Christly  love,  to  catch  the 
sense  of  their  magnitudes.  They  did  not  seem  there- 
fore to  be  sailing  over  the  world,  like  a  dust-cloud  that 
nobody  wants  to  have  settle,  but  they  fell  as  dew  on 
the  living  sensibilities  of  their  times,  dissolving  all 
subtlest  prejudices,  and  most  cunning  entanglements 
of  error.  Such  were  Chrysostom,  Augustine,  Tauler, 
Luther,  Fenelon,  Whitefield,  Summerfield,  Gossner, 
all  of  them  felt  to  be  live  men,  whose  contact,  like 
the  touch  of  Gideon's  angel,  put  men's  hearts  ablaze 
on  the  rock. 

But  we  must  go  back  a  little  way  to  the  Scripture 
and  observe  a  remarkable  fact  whicli  distinguished  the 
apostolic  preaching,  and  that  of  all  the  more  successful 
men  that  have  come  after,  viz.,  that  the  interest  they 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  241 

feel  in  men,  or  human  souls,  is  not  gauged  simply  by 
what  they  are,  but  more  by  what  they  are  becoming, 
or  to  be.  They  see  themselves  and  all  God's  saints  in 
a  glorious  uplifting  or  ennobling  process,  that  kindles 
in  them  an  immense  expectation,  and  an  almost  super- 
human ardor.  Glorified  mind  ! — this  is  the  purpose 
of  their  gospel.  And  if  there  were  a  university  that 
could  finish  a  pupil  up  to  that  measure,  it  would  even 
be  a  fault  of  the  teachers,  if  their  heads  were  not 
turned  by  it.  On  this  point  these  Christian  preachers 
put  their  eye,  and  the  problem  is,= — "from  glory  to 
glory."  They  say  nothing  of  ''  perfection,"  save  in  a 
certain  lower,  partly  accommodated  sense  of  the  term, 
where  we  see  them  rushing  by,  or  beyond,  to  some- 
thing better  and  higher.  Or,  if  they  sometimes  speak 
of  it  in  the  more  absolute,  ideal  sense,  they  disclaim  it 
as  a  grace  already  attained,  and  we  see  them  stretch- 
ing on  to  apprehend, — not  exactly  that,  which  never 
can  be  apprehended, — but  the  glory  they  were  appre- 
hended for,  beholding,  as  it  were,  the  gates  of  glorified 
possibility  set  open  before  them,  and  tracing,  with 
their  eye,  the  interminable  progressions  and  the  pros- 
pects boundless. 

They  put  down,  first,  three  "full  assurances  ;"  one 
of  "  hope,"  one  of  "  faith"  and  one  of  "understand- 
ing;" showing  the  undone,  guilty,  fearing  creature 
put  on  a  base,  if  he  will  be,  of  true  certified  confidence 
that  is  well  nigh  deific.  Next,  they  let  him  rise  to 
the  level  even  of  his  conscience,  which  is  God's  own 
level,  pledging  there  the  world,  that  he  lives  "  in  a  con- 


242  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

science  void  of  offence."  Then  as  to  the  past,  the 
guilty  and  foul  past,  they  allow  him  to  be  sure  of  his 
complete,  everlasting  purgation  ;  of  being  washed  and 
made  white, — "  whiter  than  snow  "  ;  and  snow  is  very 
white.  Again  they  pledge  him  a  way  of  duty  that  is 
"  liberty,"  done  as  in  a  "  law  of  liberty ; "  the  cur- 
rents of  the  soul  being  now  so  rectified  as  to  run  no 
more  against  the  currents  of  God  ;  for,  at  the  bottom 
of  their  promised  liberty,  they  behold  a  paradox  of 
possibility  given, — "  that  ye  might  be  filled  with  all 
the  fullness  of  God  "  ;  filled  and  tided  on,  that  is,  in 
all  the  tides  of  God.  They  do  more,  they  pledge  what 
it  is  scarcely  possible  to  understand  and  only  possible 
to  believe,  a  real  traduction  or  passing  over  and  per- 
sonal appropriation  of  God's  own  characters  and 
qualities  ;  so  that  we  may  boldly  "  seek  the  righteous- 
ness of  God,"  and  have  it  "  unto  and  upon  "  us  in  the 
faith  of  Jesus  Christ ;  being  so  restored  to  the  origi- 
nal normal  footing,  in  which  we  and  all  upright  crea- 
tures were  set,  to  be  charactered  in  God's  everlasting 
overflow,  even  as  the  day  is  charactered  from  the  sun. 
So  they  are  likewise  to  have  a  traductive  knowledge 
from  him,  that  has  no  assignable  limit,  "  the  knowl- 
edge of  God's  will  in  all  wisdom  and  spiritual  under- 
standing," his  "  anointing  that  teacheth  all  things." 
They  conceive  also  great  incomings  of  power,  which 
are  to  put  our  being,  so  to  speak,  in  the  deific  quanti- 
ties ;  saying, "  whatsoever  ye  ask  believing," — "  greater 
works  than  these," — "  be  thou,  sycamine,  plucked  up 
and  cast  in  the  sea ; "  where  they  get  us  raised  to 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  243 

gifts  of  possibility  so  nearly  boundless,  that  we  forth- 
with set  our  incontinent  reason,  commonly,  to  a  set- 
tlement or  defining  of  their  necessary  limitations  ;  not 
perceiving  that  they  are  purposely  made  boundless, 
because  there  is  meant  to  be  no  bound,  save  what  will 
he  contained  in  the  immensely  variable  possibilities 
and  gradations  of  faith.  They  expect  also  a  fertility 
in  works  of  beneficence  that  is  not  to  be  measured  by 
limitations ;  that  every  man  shall  be  a  light,  and  a 
salt,  as  diffusive  as  the  sun  and  the  sea ;  where  also 
Christ  himself  declares:  "He  that  believeth  on  me,  as 
the  scripture  hath  said,  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow 
rivers  of  living  water."  Rivers  begin  small,  and 
grow  large,  and  run  a  long  time,  and  stretch  them- 
selves afar,  and  move  irresistibly ;  and  how  much  it 
signifies  to  be  a  river !  And  finally,  what  rises  high- 
est and  signifies  most,  they  behold  a  restoration  begun 
of  the  mind's  broken  order  under  evil,  and  a  re-crys- 
tallization of  it  in  its  normal  working  and  harmony. 
Thus,  coming  into  "  the  spirit  of  love,"  they  perceive 
to  be  the  same  thing  as  coming  into  "  a  sound  mind." 
They  also  pre-figure  in  Christ  a  casting  down  of  all 
wild  "  imaginations  "  and  a  "  bringing  into  captivity 
of  every  thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ."  Blessed 
and  high  and  dear  captivity  will  it  now  be  within, 
when  all  the  propagations  of  thought,  free  thought, 
are  captivated  in  sweet  law,  and  set  playing  in  the 
chime  of  order.  In  all  which  there  seems  to  be  an- 
ticipated a  moving  of  the  soul  under  its  laws,  so 
angelically  beautiful  and  true,  that  when  the  will  is 


244  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

withdrawn,  as  in  sleep,  it  will  even  dream  in  heaven's 
order. 

Conceiving  now  these  dignities,  and  powers,  and 
forthcoming  glories  of  souls,  and  beholding  their 
uplifting  of  stature  in  the  new  divine  life  which  is. 
called  their  salvation,  the  preacher  will  better  appre- 
ciate botli  men  and  the  gospel,  and  will  be  raised  to  a 
new  plane  of  action  by  the  interest  he  feels.  He  will 
have  great  inspirations  manward,  such  as  suffer  no 
slack  working,  such  as  make  him  instant  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  and  keep  him  always  in  a  thoroughly 
vital  connection  with  his  times. 

Having  suggested,  in  this  very  imperfect  sketch, 
some  of  the  modes  of  training  by  which  we  may  bring 
ourselves  closer  to  men,  and  make  ourselves  more 
vitally  felt  by  them,  1  abstain  from  further  illustra- 
tions. 

One  of  my  anxieties,  in  the  treatment  of  this  sub- 
ject, has  been  to  give  no  look  of  countenance,  or  favor, 
to  a  certain  frivolous  and  light  way  of  speaking  in 
regard  to  it^  such  as  we  too  frequently  hear.  As  if  it 
were  only  a  matter  of  natural  address  in  which  the  de- 
ficiency manwards  appears,  or  as  if  nothing  more  were 
wanting  for  the  remedy,  but  to  be  more  completely 
and  bravely  men  ;  or,  as  some  will  phrase  it,  more  like 
natural  born  people  and  men  of  the  world.  But  this 
contemptuous  lightness,  this  very  cheap  kind  of  satire, 
is  itself  much  further  down  below  the  range  of  dig- 
nity than  it  supposes,  in  that  it  so  little  conceives,  or 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  245 

SO  blindly  ignores,  what  is  the  deepest,  grandest  note 
of  capacity  in  all  high  preaching,  viz.,  the  momentum 
of  God's  private  inspirations ;  that  which  makes  the 
man  a  symbol,  and  a  voice,  and  a  power.  Therefore, 
let  him  be  or  become  as  bravely  man  as  you  please, 
put  him  wholly  on  the  felicity  of  his  personal  address, 
or  the  popularity  of  his  natural  parts,  and  he  is  nobody. 

-  A  naturally  demonstrative  manner  and  action  are 
good,  and  yet,  by  themselves,  are  good  for  nothing. 
The  fine  declaimers  and  speaking  prodigies  of  the 
schools  turn  out  always  here  to  be  only  men  of  straw ; 
with  the  disadvantage  of  not  being  combustible.  A  cer- 
tain manner  of  reserve  and  strong  discipline  is  often 
more  impressive,  even  though  there  be  some  awkward- 
ness in  it.     The  preacher  needs  to  be  a  man  rather 

^  who  has  been  taken  apart,  sometime,  from  men,  to  be 
closeted  with  God  in  private  struggles.  Any  one  can 
be  accepted  and  made  welcome  by  men,  who  will  take 
their  kev  and  be  one  of  them,  but  whoever  will  come 
to  them  closely  in  the  key  of  their  religious  nature, 
must,  first  of  all,  be  drawn  up  close  to  God,  and  come 
down  thence  deifically  flavored  to  them/^Besides  it 
is  only  by  sometimes  getting  far  enough  apart  from 
them  to  adequately  think  who  they  are,  that  any  one 
can  duly  understand  them,  and  be  qualified  for  the 
friendliest,  most  effective  care  of  them.     Large  natu- 

/  ral  sympathies  are  good,  but  large  supernatural  are 
better ;  even  such  as  have  partly  sounded  the  com- 
passions of  God,  and  had  their  own  private  Gethse- 

/  mane.  t/There  will  of  course  be  no  advertising  by  the 


246  TRAINING    FOR    THE 

preacher  of  what  God  has  been  doing  with  him  in 
secret,  no  parade  of  sensibility,  no  affectations  of  con- 
cern, but  it  will  come  out,  as  in  spite  of  concealment, 
,  and,  if  it  may,  in  spite  of  a  certain  robust  manner, 
that  here  is  one  whose  heart  is  heaving  under  a  weight 
of  private  burden  unconfessed.  And  this  is  the  true 
hiding  of  power.  A  great,  right  soul,  bearing  visibly 
such  loads  from  God,  will  never  have  a  dreary, 
dreamy,  far-off  way,  but  will  go  directly  into  men's 
bosoms  by  the  certificate  of  his  own  true  feeling  and 
his  manly  sense  of  man.  Even  his  "  good  morning  " 
will  go  through  them  as  a  welcome  word  from  some 
beautiful  otherwhere  not  of  this  world. 

And  such  a  man  will  not  be  simply  one  who  has  put 
his  education-money  into  the  preparation  of  this  par- 
ticular trade  or  profession,  going  forward  now  into  it, 
as  a  practitioner  duly  qualified.  He  will  not  speak 
secundum  artem  out  of  his  mere  school  advantages, 
but  as  one  who  has  been  training  under  the  God-bur- 
dens of  the  great  salvation,  one  who  is  now  harnessed 
in  the  inspirations  of  his  call  and  qualified  as  one  of 
God's  prophets. 

I  must  add  yet  one  word  more  that  will  draw  us 
down  upon  the  final  point  of  our  subject  more  closely. 
I  admitted  in  the  outset  that  a  preacher,  separated 
from  men  by  his  office,  will  be  separated  also  from 
their  sympathies,  if  he  is  not  quickened  from  above, 
to  reclaim  the  hold  he  has  lost.  I  have  also  just  now 
said,  that  a  certain  degree  of  withdrawment  may  be 
necessary  to  the  best  understanding  of  them,  and  the 


PULPIT    MANWARD.  247 

closest  sympathy  with  their  want.  The  two  points 
are  not  incompatible  or  contrary,  but  wholly  compre- 
hensible together.  And  these  two  poles  we  must 
learn  how  to  hold  in  even  conjunction.  We  are  never 
to  be  afraid  of  going  into  separation  from  men's 
worldly  tastes,  or  mere  natural  affinities,  lest  we  lose 
our  hold  of  them,  but  we  are  to  get  the  stronger  hold 
of  their  respect  and  sympathy  by  rightly  doing  it. 
We  are  to  be  always  going  apart,  that  we  may  come 
nigh ;  to  be  getting  our  Promethean  fire  from  above 
and  our  clay  from  below ;  to  send  our  prayers  up  after 
strength  for  our  burdens  and  find  below  the  burdens 
to  be  carried ;  to  keep  in  God's  high  sympathy  and 
bring  that  sympathy  down  close  to  men.  And  who, 
my  friends,  should  better  understand  this  footing  of 
adjustment  than  you  ?  For,  look,  what  means  yon 
solitary  bulkhead,  pier,  tower,  standing  a  long  way  off 
in  the  sea  abreast  of  your  city  ?  So  lonely  and  so  far 
away,  so  nearly  nowhere,  has  it  not  a  look  well  nigh 
absurd  ?  Ah,  but  there  is  a  hidden  connection.  It  is 
there  for  what  it  may  be  here,  or  send  in  hither.  Yea, 
out  of  the  belly  of  that  creature  flow  rivers  of  living 
water.  And  here,  at  this  hither  end,  have  you  not  a 
whole  great  city  pumping,  and  drawing,  and  drinking, 
and  bathing,  day  and  night  and  year  by  year  ?  And 
how  many  kinds  of  comfort  does  that  ample  flood  dis- 
pense ;  slaking  your  fevers,  quelling  your  fires,  laying 
the  dust  of  your  streets  by  showers  that  do  not  wait 
for  clouds,  preparing  all  your  food,  feeding  the  bloom 
of  your  gardens  and  conservatories,  and  filling  the 


248  PULPIT   MANWARD. 

lavers  set  for  the  washing  of  jour  sins.  And  if  any 
one  should  say,  behold  there  is  water  enough  closer 
at  hand,  where  the  said  far-off  tower  could  ho-ve  been 
more  easily  built,  it  must  be  enough  to  answer,  that 
it  was  purposely  set  a  long  two  miles  away,  that  it 
might  take  in  the  waters  of  the  clear,  pure,  central 
deep,  and  not  the  filthy  dregs  of  the  shore.  Men  and 
brethren,  so  be  it  ours  to  minister  no  gospel  on  the 
hither  shore  of  our  mere  natural  parts  and  powers, 
but  to  be  conduit  mouths  opened  far  off  rather,  in 
God's  pure,  deep  eternity,  thence  to  bring  in  rivers 
of  life  for  the  cleansing,  health-restoring,  medicating 
grace  of  the  world. 


YIII. 

OUE  GOSPEL  A  GIFT  TO  THE  IMAGINATION.'^ 


The  most  unilluminated  and  least  valuable  of  the 
Bampton  Lecture  volumes  has  been  recently  published 
by  Mr.  Garbett,  under  the  title,  "The  Dogmatic 
Faith  ; "  a  title  which  does  about  equal  violence  to  both 
the  terms  of  which  it  is  compounded.  For  the  Gospel 
is  no  dogma,  and  if  it  were,  could  not  be  a  faith. 
The  word  dogma  indicates  in  its  etymology  and  sup- 
poses in  its  common  uses,  a  something  thought ;  it  is 
opinion  offered  to  opinion  as  having  a  standard  right ; 
whereas  ^le  gospel  is  a  revelation  made  up  of  fact 
and  form  and  figure,  and  offered  as  a  presentation  to 
faith.  It  calls  itself  indeed  "  the  faith,"  and  he  infers 
at  once  that,  since  it  is  an  "  authoritative  faith,"  it 
must  be  dogmatic.  Whereas  all  truth  has  this  attrib- 
ute of  authority,  though  it  does  not  follow  that  it  has 
such  kind  of  authority  as  allows  it  to  be  no  faith  at 
all,  viz.,  dogma.  What  is  given  to  faith  is  put  forth 
in   some   fact-form   or   symbol   to  be  interpreted  by 

*  Contributed  to  the  Hours  at  Home,  in  1869,  Vol.  VII.  The 
reader  is  referred  for  a  full  discussion  of  this  subject  to  the  "Essay 
on  Language"  in  the  volume,  "  God  in  Christ." 

(249) 


250  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

imaginative  insight,  or  the  discerning  power  of  faith. 
What  is  given  to  opinion  is  given  to  the  notional  un- 
derstanding. One  imports  liberty,  and  the  other  a 
certain  dictational  right  as  respects  thinking.  In  one 
there  is  a  perceiving  by  trust  and  the  soul-welcome  of 
trust ;  the  other  is  a  notional  percehdng  or  thinking, 
without  perhaps  any  soul-welcome  at  all.  In  his 
treatise  therefore  on  the  Dogmatic  Faith,  we  are  not 
surprised  to  find  that  Mr.  G.  is  rather  mixing  ideas 
than  clearing  them,  confounding  also  things  to  be 
spiritually  discerned  with  things  logically  reasoned,  or 
ecclesiastically  determined. 

His,  argument  is  principally  concerned  in  removing 
"  six  "  opposing  claims,  or  points  maintained.  Whether 
he  succeeds  or  not  is  a  matter  of  small  consequence, 
for  he  would  not  prove  his  doctrine  if  he  should.  Just 
that  after  all  may  be  a  fact,  which,  by  a  certain 
remarkable  fatality,  he  assumes  is  not ;  for  he  ventures 
strangely  on  the  affirmation,  that  the  opposers  of  theo- 
retic dogmatism  in  our  day  "  do  not  rest  on  any  alle- 
gation of  inaccuracy  in  the  process  of  formulating 
truth,  but  on  objections  against  the  existence  and 
certainty  of  the  truth  itself."  Exactly  contrary  to 
which,  it  will  be  seen  that,  on  this  question  of  a  pos- 
sible "  accuracy  in  formulating  truth,"  in  distinction 
from  "  the  existence  and  certainty  of  truth,"  every- 
thing, in  the  issue  he  makes,  most  emphatically 
depends.  He  supposes  himself  that  there  is  to  be  a 
formulating  process ;  which  is  a  virtual  concession 
that  the  gospel  is  not  the  complete  dogma.     And  the 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  251 

precise  difficulty  here  to  be  encountered  is  that  no 
such  process  of  accuracy  in  "  formulating  "  the  dogma, 
as  permits  a  possible  hope  of  success,  is  provided  by 
human  language.  As  he  himself  conceives,  dogma  is 
"  the  settled  and  positive  truth  stated  in  words  sharply 
defined  ;"  or  again,  more  exactly  still, ''  a  settled  and 
certain  truth,  an  attained  resting-place  for  belief,  from 
which,  as  from  the  maxims  of  mathematical  science, 
we  may  confidently  argue," — just  what  everybody 
knows  has  never  yet  been  found.  And  could  he  simply 
call  it  opinion,  he  would  see  at  once  that  there  has 
been  no  end  to  opinions  under  it  and  against  it.  Dogma 
has  been  always  going  to  be,  or  just  about  to  be  settled, 
by  some  new  school  or  teacher,  yet  in  fact  never  is. 
If  we  could  possibly  think  out  a  gospel,  we  could  not 
frame  it  and  phrase  it  in  language,  so  as  to  make  a 
finality  of  what  we  think.  For  we  have  no  language 
for  opinions  in  moral  and  religious  matters  that  is  not 
compounded  in  forms  and  figures,  which  are  only 
images,  and  not  exact  notations  for  what  they  repre- 
sent. They  are  good  for  the  uses  of  faith  and,  in  fact, 
more  wondrously  significant  and  sufficient  in  that 
manner,  but  they  have  no  such  determinate  property 
as  permits  them  to  serve  the  uses  of  dogma. 

I  propose,  in  these  suggestions,  no  formal  contro- 
versy with  Mr.  Garbett's  book.  I  only  refer  to  it  in 
the  way  of  introducing  a  presentation  as  nearly  oppo- 
site as  may  be  at  the  point  here  stated.  What  I  am 
going  to  advance  will  hold  equally  well  in  all  matters  of 
philosophic  speculation  ;  but,  to  simplify  the  argument, 


252  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

I  propose  to  confine  my  illustrations  within  the  ranges, 
for  the  most  part,  of  the  Christian  truth. 

I  shall  endeavor  to  exhibit,  as  far  as  I  can  in  the 
restricted  limits  of  this  article,  the  fact  that  our 
Christian  Gospel  is  a  Gift  more  especially  to  the 
Human  Imagination.  It  offers  itself  first  of  all  and 
principally  to  the  interpretative  imaginings  and  dis- 
cernings  of  faith,  never,  save  in  that  manner,  to  the 
constructive  processes  of  logic  and  speculative  opinion. 
It  is,  in  one  sense,  pictorial ;  its  every  line  or  linea- 
ment is  traced  in  some  image  or  metaphor,  and  by  no 
possible  ingenuity  can  it  be  gotten  away  from  meta- 
phor ;  for  as  certainly  as  one  metaphoric  image  is 
escaped  by  a  definition,  another  will  be  taken  up,  and 
must  be,  to  fill  its  place  in  the  definition  itself.  Math- 
ematical language  is  a  scheme  of  exact  notation.  All 
words  that  are  names  of  mere  physical  acts  and  objects. 
are  literal,  and  even  animals  can,  so  far,  learn  their 
own  names  and  the  meaning  of  many  acts  done  or  com- 
manded. But  no  animal  ever  understood  a  metaphor: 
that  belongs  to  intelligence,  and  to  man  as  a  creature 
of  intelligence ;  being  a  power  to  see,  in  all  images, 
the  faces  of  truth,  and  take  their  sense,  or  read 
\_intus  lego']  their  meaning,  when  thrown  up  in  language 
before  the  imagination. 

Every  word  is  a  figure  called  in  to  serve  a  meta- 
phoric use,  in  virtue  of  the  fact  that  it  has  a  physical 
base  naturally  significant  of  the  spiritual  truth  or 
meaning  it  is  used  metaphorically  to  express.    Physical 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  253 

bases  are  the  timber,  in  this  manner,  of  all  mental 
language,  and  are  generally  traced  in  the  etymologies 
of  the  dictionaries ;  though  sometimes  they  are  lost 
and  cannot  be  traced.  And  it  is  not  merely  the  verbs, 
nouns,  adjectives,  that  carry  these  metaphoric  uses, 
but  their  very  grammar  of  relationship,  as  they  are 
found  originally  in  space  themselves,  is  also  framed 
in  terms  of  space  by  the  little  Y\"ords  called  prepositions, 
which  show  their  spatial  images  in  their  faces,  up, 
doijon^  hy^  through^  to,  under,  from,  beyond  and  the  like. 
The  whole  web  of  speech  is  curiously  woven  metaphor, 
and  we  are  able  to  talk  out  our  thoughts  in  it, — never 
one  of  them  visible, — by  throwing  out  metaphoric 
images  in  metaphoric  grammar  so  as  to  give  them 
expression. 

Let  us  go  back  now  and  take  our  lesson  at  the  type 
history  of  the  Scriptures.  The  temple  and  the  whole 
temple  service, — ^the  sacrifices,  lustrations  of  blood, 
purifyings,  and  the  like, — was  a  figure,  an  apostle 
declares,  for  the  time  then  present.  His  word  here 
is  TrapajioKr]  \j)arahle.~\  Sometimes  he  uses  the  word 
image,  sometimes  ensample,  and  oftener  the  word  type; 
but  they  all  mean  nearly  the  same  thing.  And  here  it 
is  that  we  come  upon  the  curiously  fantastic  type-learn- 
ing, which  figures-  so  conspicuously  in  the  sermons, 
commentaries,  and  theologic  treatises  of  the  former 
time.  It  is  only  fit  subject  of  mirth,  when  it  assumes 
that  the  types  were  given  to  signify  to  the  ages  that 
received  them  the  great  living  truths  of  Christianity, 
and  not  to  be  vehicle  and  metaphor,  afterward,  for 


254  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

them  when  they  should  arrive.  These  types,  patterns, 
shadows,  images,  parables,  ensamples,  or  whatever 
else  they  were  called,  are  simply  bases  of  words  pre- 
pared to  serve  as  metaphors  of  the  new  salvation  when 
it  should  come.  And  for  this  purpose,  in  part,  the 
altar  service  was  instituted ;  for  the  gospel  grace  was 
to  be  a  grace  supernatural,  and  there  were  no  types, 
no  bases  of  words  in  nature,  that  could  serve  the 
necessary  metaphoric  uses.  All  the  natural  metaphors 
were  in  a  lower  field  of  significance,  and  all  mere 
natural  language  fell  short  of  the  mark. 

It  may  occur  to  some  as  an  objection,  that  the 
apostle  says :  "  a  figure  for  the  time  then  present." 
But  he  means  "  for  the  time  then  present,"  only  in  the 
sense  that  in  using  the  altar-rites  or  rites  of  sacrifice, 
for  their  liturgy  of  worship,  the  men  of  old  were 
brought  into  faiths,  repentances  and  tempers  analogical 
to  those  of  the  gospel  grace.  He  does  not  mean  that 
they. saw  Christianity  and  the  gospel  grace  typified 
and  foreshadowed  in  their  rites.  Not  even  the 
prophets  themselves  understood  any  such  thing,  but 
"  were  searching  ivliat,  and  what  manner  of  time,  the 
Spirit  of  Christ  which  was  in  them  did  signify." 
These  men  of  old  were  in  the  patterns  of  the  heavenly 
things,  not  in  the  heavenly  things  themselves.  Their 
rites  were  the  bases  of  words  some  time  to  be  used  as 
metaphors  of  the  Christian  grace,  but  they  did  not 
see,  as  yet,  what  things  the  metaphors  were  going  to 
express.  They  lived  in  the  shadow  of  good  things  to 
come,  but  not  in  the  very  import  of  them. 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION  255 

But  we  must  look  into  language  itself  and  see  how 
the  great  revelation  of  God  is  coming  and  to  come. 
First  of  all,  it  is  impossible,  as  we  have  seen  already, 
that  any  terms  of  language  for  mental  notions,  things 
of  the  spirit,  unseen  worlds,  beings  invisible,  should  ^ 
ever  exist,  save  as  there  are  physical  images  found  to  J^ 
serve  as  metaphorio  bases  of  the  necessary  words ; 
for  we  cannot  show  them  to  the  eye  and  then  name 
them,  as  we  do  acts  or  objects  visible  ;  we  can  only 
hint  them  by  figures,  or  objects  metaphorically  signifi-  ^ 
cant  of  them.  And  so  we  see  beforehand,  that  all 
the  truths  of  religion  are  going  to  be  given  to  men  by 
images ;  so  that  all  God's  truth  will  come  as  to  the 
imagination.  ■  Hence  the  necessity  of  the  old  physical 
religion  to  prepare  draperies  and  figures  for  the  new. 
Hence  also,  when  we  come  to  the  new,  we  are  con- 
stantly met,  we  perhaps  know  not  why  or  how,  by 
images  taken  from  the  old,  in  a  way  that  seems  half 
fanciful  and  curiously  mystical.  Adam  is  the  figure 
of  him  that  was  to  come,  the  second  Adam,  because 
he,  Christ,  was  to  be  the  head,  correspondently,  of  a 
spiritual  generation.  Christ  is  David,  Melchizedek, 
high  priest,  the  spiritual  Rock,  a  prophet  like  unto 
Moses  and  I  know  not  what  beside.  John  the  Bap- 
tist is  Elias  that  was  to  come.  In  the  same  manner, 
heaven  is  a  paradise  or  garden,  or  a  new  Jerusalem, 
or  a  state  of  glorious  city  life  in  God  ;  the  new  society 
of  grace  is  to  be  the  kingdom  of  God,  or  the  kingdom 
of  heaven ;  and  Christ  himself  is  Messiah,  that  is, 
king.    All  the  past  is  taken  up  as  metaphor  for  all  the 


256  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

future.  All  these  things,  we  are  to  say,  "  happened 
unto  them  for  ensamples,"  that  is,  types  for  the  ex- 
pression of  our  higher  truth. 

And  so  we  are  questioning  often  about  the  credibility 
of  a  double  meaning  in  scripture ;  as  if  it  were  a 
thing  fanciful  beyond  belief.  Whereas  the  meanings 
double  and  redouble  as  often  as  new  typologies  are 
.  made  ready.  The  spiritual  comes  out  of  the  physical, 
and  the  more  spiritual  out  of  the  less ;  just  because 
one  thing  is  ready  for  the  expression  of  another  and 
still  another.  There  is  nothing  fantastical  in  it,  but 
it  comes  to  pass  mider  a  fixed  law  of  language, — all 
language,  even  the  most  common, — even  as  a  stalk  of 
corn  pushes  out  leaf  from  within  leaf  by  a  growth 
that  is  its  unsheathing. 

Every  dictionary  shows  the  unsheathing  process 
always  going  on ;  meanings  coming  out  of  meanings, 
and  second  senses  doubling  upon  first,  and  third  upon 
second,  and  so  every  symbol  breeding  families  of  mean- 
ings on  to  the  tenth  or  twentieth  and  saying  always, 
in  the  scripture  way  :  "  that  so  it  might  be  fulfilled." 
This  fulfilling  is  no  scripture  conceit,  but  is  the  sys- 
tematic fact  of  language  itself. 

We  shall  get  further  insight  into  this  matter  by 
just  considering  the  state  of  mind  a  prophet  is  in 
when  he  writes.  He  is  lifted  by  his  inspiration  into 
a  state  of  high  beholding,  as  regards  some  matter 
which  is  to  be  the  particular  subject  of  his  testimony ; 
and  the  divine  perceptiveness  thus  quickened  in  him, — 
so  far  the  particular  matter  he  sees, — will  be  the  spec- 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  267 

ially  God-given  import  of  his  message.  Then  he  is 
to  conceive,  express,  set  forth  in  words  for  himself 
what  is  in  his  beholding.  But  he  cannot  testify  any 
thing  unknown,  we  see  at  once,  save  by  images  taken 
from  the  known.  Suppose  him  to  be  set  in  some  high 
fose  of  seership  that  really  relates,  if  he  could  say  it, 
to  our  new  western  world  and  the  new  day  some  time 
here  to  be  seen.  He  cannot  say  "America,"  for  that 
is  a  name  not  known  as  Grecia  was.  If  he  says, 
"  beyond  the  sea,"  it  would  only  mean  outside  the 
pillars  of  Hercules  or  Gibraltar  Rock.  He  cannot 
seize  on  images  in  the  Gulf  Stream,  or  the  Mam- 
moth Cave,  or  Niagara,  or  the  great  lakes,  or  the 
forests,  or  the  prairies,  or  the  rivers,  or  the  fierce, 
wild  warriors  of  the  woods.  He  has  not  an  image 
distinctly  American  in  his  whole  stock.  What  then 
can  he  say  ?  Manifestly  nothing ;  because  he  has 
nothing  in  which  to  say  it.  Possibly  some  of  Isaiah's 
pictures  of  the  "Isles  waiting  for  God,"  and  "the 
ships  of  Tarshish  bringing  sons  from  far,  their  silver 
and  their  gold  with  them,"  may  have  a  look  this  way, 
taking  old  Tarshish  for  a  figure,  but  we  can  never 
know.  Under  this  same  law,  we  have  the  fact  of 
creation,  as  given  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis, 
beautifully  illustrated.  No  human  spectator  saw  the 
creation,  and  the  only  way  in  which  it  could  ever  be 
reported  was  by  a  kind  of  prophecy  backward.  Some 
great  prophet  soul,  we  may  imagine,  coasting  round 
the  work  of  God  in  a  power  of  holy  insight,  or  divine 
beholding,  framed,  as  it  were,  his  own  divine  concep- 


258  OUR    GOSPEL     A     GIFT 

tion  of  the  fact  as  progressive,  drawing  itself  on  by 
irregular,  indefinite  stages, — no  matter  how  long  or 
short,  or  even  how  many, — and  to  set  the  stages  forth, 
he  caught  up  the  natural  time- spacing  symbol  of  days, 
and  made  up  a  chapter  of  progressions  that  took  a 
week  of  days  before  it  was  finished.  To  conceive 
anything  more  pitiful  than  the  grubbing  literalism 
that  cannot  think  of  days  going  thus  into  metaphor 
because  they  are  in  the  Almanac  would,  I  think,  be 
difficult.  Was  there  ever  a  case  for  metaphor  more 
easily  discernible  beforehand  ? 

We  perceive  in  these  illustrations  how  every  reve- 
lator  and  teacher  of  things  spiritual  or  things  future, 
gets  and  must  get  his  power  to  express  the  unknown 
by  drawing  images  and  figures  from  the  known.  As 
he  must  portray  the  new  world  by  some  old  image  of 
a  Tarshish  in  the  sea,  or  by  some  other  like  symbol,  if 
he  does  at  all,  or  the  creation  by  the  spacing  figure  of 
days,  or  heaven  by  the  image  of  a  paradise,  or  a  great 
city  Jerusalem,  so  it  must  be  with  everything. 

Thus  if  God  is  to  be  himself  revealed,  he  has 
already  thrown  out  symbols  for  it,  filling  the  creation 
^  full  of  them,  and  these  will  all  be  played  into  meta- 
phor. The  day  will  be  his  image,  the  sea,  the  great 
rock's  shadow,  the  earthquake,  the  dew,  the  fatherhood 
care  of  the  child,  and  the  raven  and  the  feeble  folk  of 
the  conies, — all  that  the  creation  is  and  contains,  in  all 
depths  and  heights  and  latitudes  and  longitudes  of 
space, — everything  expresses  God  by  some  image  that 
is  fit,  as  far  as  it  goes.     "  Day   unto   day   uttereth 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  259 

speech,  and  night  unto  night  showeth  knowledge." 
Metaphor  on  metaphor  crowds  the  earth  and  the  skies, 
bearing  each  a  face  that  envisages  the  Eternal  Mind, 
whose  word  or  wording  forth  it  is  to  be.  Again  he 
takes  a  particular  people  into  covenant  specially  with 
himself,  just  in  order  to  make  their  public  history  the 
Providential  metaphor,  so  to  speak,  of  his  ruler  ship 
and  redeeming  teachership,  leading  them  on  and  about 
by  his  discipline,  and  raising  light  and  shade  as  be- 
tween them  and  the  world-kingdoms  of  the  false 
gods  about  them,  to  set  himself  in  relief  as  the  true 
Lord  of  all.  And  then,  following  still  the  same  law 
of  expression  by  outward  fact  and  image,  he  crowns 
the  revelation  process  by  the  incarnate  life  and  life- 
story  of  his  Son,  erecting  on  earth  a  supernatural 
kingdom  to  govern  the  world  in  the  interest  of  his 
supernatural  redemption.  And  if  we  do  not  take  the 
word  in  some  light,  frivolous,  merely  rhetorician  way, 
we  can  say  nothing  of  Christ  so  comprehensively  ade- 
quate as  to  call  him  the  metaphor  of  God ;  God's  last 
metaphor !  And  when  we  have  gotten  all  the  meta- 
phoric  meanings  of  his  life  and  death,  all  that  is  ex- 
pressed and  bodied  in  his  person  of  God's  saving  help 
and  new-creating,  sin-forgiving,  reconciling  love,  the 
sooner  we  dismiss  all  speculations  on  the  literalities  of 
his  incarnate  miracles,  his  derivation,  the  composition 
of  his  person,  his  suffering, — plainly  transcendent  as 
regards  our  possible  understanding, — the  wiser  shall  ^\v 
we  be  in  our  discipleship.  We  shall  have  him  as  the 
express  image  of  God's  person.     We  shall  have  ''  the 


260  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

light  of  the  knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God,  in  the 
face  of  Jesus   Christ."     Beholding   in   him   as   in  a 
glass  the  glory  of  the  Lord,  we  shall  be  changed  into" 
the  same  image.     The  metaphoric  contents  are  ours, 
and  beyond  that  nothing  is  given. 

Going  on  then  to  matters  of  spiritual  use  and  ex- 
perience in  what  we  call  the  doctrine  of  his  gospel, 
we  have  these  given  also  to  the  imagination  in  terms  of 
metaphor.  As  far  back  as  the  days  of  Abraham  and 
Moses,  words  and  images  for  this  kind  of  use  were 
very  scantily  provided.  Even  prayer  was  best  de- 
scribed as  a  wrestling  match.  The  prophets  found 
images  more  nearly  sufficient.  And  when  Christ 
came,  great  images  were  evoked  that  never  had  been 
used  before.  He  was  called  a  door  to  be  entered,  a 
bread  from  heaven  to  be  fed  upon,  a  water  of  life  to 
quench  the  thirst,  life,  way,  shepherd,  healer,  teacher, 
master,  king,  and  rock.  And  when  the  very  point  of 
a  new  life  begun  is  to  be  explained  or  expounded,  he 
draws  on  the  well-known  fact  of  proselyte  baptism 
and  calls  it  regeneration  :  ^'Art  thou  a  master  in  Israel 
and  knowest  not  these  things  ? "  Have  you  not  seen 
the  Gentile  proselyte,  before  unclean,  washed  by  a 
baptism  and  so  regenerated,  born  over,  naturalized,  as 
we  say,  in  Israel  ?  So  the  unclean  soul  of  sin,  born 
of  water  and  the  Spirit,  is  entered,  as  a  spiritually 
new  man,  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  The  great  expe- 
rience wrought  is  imaged  thus,  how  beautifully  and 
comprehensively,  as  a  change  from  the  unclean  to  the 
clean ;  and  so  the  soul  that  was  alien  from  God  is 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  261 

inducted  into  citizenship  in  God's  everlasting  king- 
dom.    No  finest  words  of  analysis  and  psychologic 
statement   could   describe  the   great  mystery  of  the 
Spirit  half  as  effectively.     So  in  the  same  chapter,  the 
same  thing  is  set  forth  under  the  image  of  the  ser- 
pent lifted  up  in  the  wilderness.     "  Look  unto  me," 
says  the  Great  Teacher  now  to  be  lifted  up,  "  and,  by 
that  fixed  beholding  of  your  faith,  the  sin-plague  in 
you  shall  be  healed."     That  plague  in  its  secret  work- 
ing, that  healing  in  its  secret  cure,  who  shall  describe 
it  psychologically,  even  as  this  simple  image  does  by 
its  metaphoric  use  ?     Both  these  images,  however,  of 
regeneration  and  of  spiritual  healing  were  impossible 
before  the  ministry  of  Providence  had  prepared  them. 
They  came  late  because  they  could  not  come  before. 
The  same  again  was  true  of  the  great  reconcilia- 
tion or  atonement,  in  Christ's  life  and  death.     Plainly 
there  was  here  no  lamb,  no  fire,  no  altar,  no  literal 
sacrifice.     There  was  a  blood  of  murder,  but  no  rite 
in  blood,  no  sprinkling,  no  kind  of  lustral  ceremony. 
And  yet  all  these  things  are  here  as  in  metaphor,  and 
are  meant  to  be.     One  great  object  of  the  old  ritual 
was  to  prepare  these  images  and  get  them  ready  as  a 
higher   language   for  the  supernatural   truth.      The 
people  of  the  law  were  put  in  training  under  these 
patterns  of  the  heavenly  things,  till  the  very  mind  of 
their   nation   should   be    stocked   with   images    and 
metaphors   thence  derived  for   the  heavenly   things 
themselves.     Who    could   ever  have    conceived   the 
ministry  and  death  of  Jesus  in  these  words  of  atone- 


262  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

ment,  sacrifice,  and  cleansing,  whose  mind  had  not  first 
been  Judaized  in  the  stock  images  of  its  thinking  ? 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  some  gifted  Greek,  having 
a  soul  configured  to  Plato's  methods  and  ideas,  had 
been  with  Christ,  as  Peter  was,  all  through  his  life, 
and  then,  after  his  death,  had  written  his  epistle  to 
expound  him  and  his  religion  to  the  world.     What 
could  he  have  said  of  him  more  adequate  than  to  set 
him  forth  as  a  beautiful  and  wise  character  doing 
wonders  by  his  power ;  a  friend  of  the  poor,  a  healer 
of  the  sick,  patient  of  contradiction,  submissive  to 
enemies,  meek,  true,  the  ever  good,  the  perfect  fair  ? 
That  he  has  done  any  thing  which  can  be  called  his 
sacrifice,  any  thing  to  recompose  the  breach  of  sin  or 
to  reconcile  the  world  to  God,  will  not  occur  to  him, 
and  he  has  no  words  to  speak  of  any  such  thing.  Not 
one  matter  most  distinctively  prominent  in  Christ's 
work,  as  expounded  by  his   apostles,  filling  out  in 
metaphoric  glory  all  the  terms  of  the  altar,  could  have 
been  given,  or  even  thought  by  him.    All  the  better, 
many  will  now  say  ;  we  shall  gladly  be  rid  of  all  such 
altar  figures ;  for  it  is  too  late  in  the  day  to  be  mak- 
ing Hebrews  of  us  now.     But  suppose  it  should  hap- 
pen to  be  true  that  the  all-wise  God  made  Hebrews 
partly  for  this  very  thing,  to  bring  figures  into  speech 
that  Greeks  and  Saxons  had  not ;  that  so  he  might 
give  to  the  world  the  perfectly  transcendent,  super- 
natural matter  of  a  grace  that  reaches  high  enough  to 
cover  and  compose  the  relations  of  men  to  his  gov- 
ernment, a  Q'race  of  reconciliation.     Call  the  words 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  263 

"  old  clothes "  then  of  the  Hebrews,  putting  what 
contempt  we  may  upon  them,  still  they  are  such  types 
and  metaphors  of  God's  mercy  as  he  has  been  able  to 
prepare,  and  Christ  is  in  them  as  in  "  glorious  ap- 
parel ! "  Why  to  say :  "  Behold  the  Lamb  of  God, 
that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world,"  signifies,  in 
the  heart's  uses,  more  than  whole  volumes  of  palaver 
in  any  possible  words  of  natural  languge.  No  living 
disciple,  having  once  gotten  the  sense  of  these  types 
of  the  altar,  will  ever  try  to  get  his  gospel  out  of 
them  and  preach  it  in  the  common  terms  of  language. 
Quite  as  certainly  will  he  never  try,  having  once  got- 
ten their  meaning,  to  hold  them  literally, — Christ 
made  literally  sin  for  us,  a  literal  Lamb,  literal  sacri- 
fice, bleeding  literally  for  the  uses  of  his  blood.  But 
he  will  want  them  as  the  dear  interpreters  and  equiva- 
lents of  God's  mercy  in  the  cross,  putting  himself 
before  them  to  read  and  read  again,  and  drink  and 
drink  again  their  full  divine  meanings  into  his  soul. 
Beholding  more  truths  in  their  faces  than  all  the  con- 
trived theories  and  speculated  propositions  of  schools, 
he  will  stay  fast  by  them,  or  in  them,  wanting  never 
to  get  clear  of  them,  or  away  from  the  dear  and  still 
more  dear  impression  of  their  power. 

So  far  on  our  way  in  discovering  the  close  relation- 
ship of  God's  revelations  and  the  inlet  function  of 
imagination  to  which  they  are  given,  I  cannot  do 
more,  in  this  part  of  the  subject,  than  simply  to  gen- 
eralize the  argument  by  just  calling  attention  to  the 
fact  that  so  great  a  part  of  our  Bible  is  made  up  of 


264  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

compositions  that  are  essentially  poetic, — nearly  all  of 
it,  except  the  parts  rigidly  historic  or  didactic,  and 
even  these  have  their  prose  largely  sprinkled  with 
poetry.  History  itself,  in  fact,  is  but  a  kind  of  figure, 
having  its  greatest  value,  not  in  what  it  is,  but  in  what 
it  signifies.  Besides,  the  scripture  books  most  nearly 
theologic  are  handling  truths  every  moment,  as  we  see 
at  a  glance,  by  their  images.  How  didactic  are  the 
parables,  and  yet  they  are  only  metaphors  drawn  out ! 
In  the  same  way  the  disciples  are  God's  living  epis- 
tles, temples  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  cities  on  hills,  work- 
ing as  servants,  running  as  in  races,  beholding  as  in 
glasses, — every  single  point  of  instruction  comes  out 
in  some  metaphor,  so  that  we  may  safely  challenge 
the  specification  of  one  that  does  not.  And  when  we 
look  into  the  argumentations  we  find  them  also  hang- 
ing on  figures  of  speech,  such  as  law,  circumcision, 
heart,  grace,  kingdom,  life,  motions  of  sins,  liberty, 
flesh.  Take  up  the  chapters  of  Paul  that  are  most 
closely  reasoned,  the  fifth  to  the  ninth,  for)  example, 
of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  the  scholar's  eye, 
if  not  the  common  reader's,  will  discover  some  meta- 
phor showing  its  face  and  turning  the  current  of 
meaning  in  every  sentence  and  in  almost  every  prin- 
cipal word.  Nay,  it  will  be  seen  that  even  the  little 
prepositions  are  struggling  as  hard  in  the  metaphoric 
revelations  as  any  of  the  other  images  concerned. 
Thus  when  we  read  :  "  of  many  offences  unto  justifi- 
cation ; "  "  dead  to  the  law  hy  the  body  of  Christ ; " 
"  through  righteousness  unto  eternal  life  ;  "  "  of  faith 
that  it  might  be  hy  grace ; "  Ave  see   the  meanings 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  265 

hanging  quite  as  visibly  on  these  little  words  as  on 
the  more  prominent,  and  we  go  back,  as  it  were,  to 
their  spatial  images,  before  we  get  the  meanings 
hitched  in  fit  relationship.  In  as  many  as  two  cases 
they  occur  in  triads,  where  some  of  our  subtlest  in- 
terpreters discover,  as  they  think,  affinities  that  tally 
secretly  with  the  higher  relativities  of  trinity  :  "  For 
of  him  and  through  him,  and  to  him  ; "  "  One  God 
and  Father  of  all,  who  is  above  all,  and  through  all, 
and  in  you  all."  So  strikingly  is  it  shown  us,  every- 
where on  the  face  of  scripture,  that  it  is  a  gift  in 
metaphor  to  the  world's  imagination. 

Only  God  forbid  that,  when  we  draw  ourselves  out 
on  this  conclusion,  we  be  understood  to  mean  by  the  ^ 
imagination  what  the  rhetoricians  teach,  in  the  girlish 
definitions  of  their  criticism.  They  describe  it  as  a 
kind  of  ornamental,  mind's-milliner  faculty,  that  excels 
in  the  tricking  out  of  subjects  in  high-wrought  meta- 
phoric  draperies,  and  such  they  call  "  imaginative 
writing."  'As  I  am  speaking  here,  the  imagination  ,^ 
has  nothing  to  do  with  ornament.  It  is  that  which  t^ 
dawns  in  beauty  like  the  day  because  the  day  is  in  it ; 
that  power  in  human  bosoms  which  reads  the  types  of 
the  creation,  beholding  the  stamps  of  God's  meanings 
in  their  faces  ;  the  power  that  distinguishes  truths 
in  their  images,  and  seizes  hold  of  images  for  the 
expression  of  truths.  So  that  a  free,  great  soul,  when 
it  is  charged  with  thoughts  so  high,  and  fresh  behold- 
ings  in  such  vigor  of  life,  that  it  cannot  find  how  to 
express  itself  otherwise,  does  it  by  images  and  meta- 


2C6  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

phors  in  flame  that  somehow  body  the  meaning  to 
imaginative  apprehension. 

Holding  now  this  view  of  truth  as  presenting  itself 
'always  by  images  metaphorically  significant,  never  by 
any  other  possible  means  or  media,  it  is  very  clear 
that  all  our  modes  of  use  and  processes  of  interpreta- 
tion must  be  powerfully  affected  by  such  a  discovery. 

First  of  all  it  must  follow,  as  a  principal  consequence, 
that  truth  is  to  be  gotten  by  a  right  beholding  of  the 
forms  or  images  by  which  it  is  expressed.  Ingenuity 
will  miss  it  by  overdoing ;  mere  industry  will  do 
scarcely  more  than  muddle  it ;  only  candor,  a  graciously 
open,  clean  candor  will  find  it.  We  can  take  the  sense 
of  its  images,  only  by  offering  a  perfectly  receptive 
imagination  to  them,  a  plate  to  fall  upon  that  is  flavored 
by  no  partisanship,  corrugated  by  no  bigotry,  blotched 
by  no  prejudice  or  passion,  warped  by  no  self-will. 
There  is  nothing  we  cannot  make  out  of  them,  by  a 
very  little  abuse,  or  perversity.  They  are  innocent 
people  who  can  never  vindicate  themselves  when 
wronged,  further  than  to  simply  stand  and  wait  for  a 
more  ingenuous  beholding.  And  it  is  to  be  a  very 
great  part  of  our  honor  and  advantage  in  the  truth, 
that  we  have  it  by  the  clean  docility  and  noble  rever- 
ence that  make  us  capable  of  it.  We  shall  not  be 
afraid  of  worshiping  its  images ;  for  they  are  not 
graven  images,  but  faces  that  express  the  truth  because 
they  are  faces  of  God.  We  want,  in  fact,  as  a  first 
condition,  a  mind  s"o  given  to  truth  that  our  love  and 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  267 

reverence  shall  open  all  our  sympathies  to  it  and  quite 
indispose  us  to  any  violent  practice  on  its  terms. 

All  mere  logically  constructive  practice  on  them, 
twisting  meanings  into  them,  or  out  of  them,  that  are 
only  deducible  from  their  forms  and  are  no  part  of  jn^ 
their  real  significance,  must  be  jealously  restrained. 
Nicodemus  was  falling  straightway  into  this  kind  of 
mischief,  when  the  words  "  born  again  "  put  him  on 
asking,  whether  a  man  can  be  born  of  his  mother  a 
second  time  ?  It  was  in  the  form  of  the  words,  but 
how  far  off  from  their  meaning !  So,  when  it  is 
declared  that  God  is  a  rock  and  that  God  is  a  river, 
what  follows,  since  things  that  are  equal  to  the  same 
things  are,  in  strict  logic,  equal  to  one  another,  but 
that  a  rock  is  a  river  ?  Meantime  God  was  not  de- 
clared to  be  either  rock  or  river,  except  in  a  very 
partial,  metaphoric  way.  In  the  same  way  Christ  is 
called  a  priest,  and  a  sacrifice,  and  it  follows  in  good 
logic  that  a  priest  is  a  sacrifice.  Nobody  happens,  it 
is  true,  to  have  reasoned  in  just  this  manner,  but  how 
many  do  reason  that,  being  called  a  priest  and  a  sac- 
rifice, he  must  be  exactly  both  in  the  sense  of  the 
ritual ;  when,  in  fact,  he  is  neither  priest  nor  sacrifice, 
save  in  such  a  sense  as  these  words,  taken  as  meta- 
phors, are  able  to  convey.  Nothing  is  to  be  gotten  / 
ever,  by  spinning  conclusions  out  of  the  mere  forms 
or  images  of  truth,  but  mischief  and  delusion.  And 
the  record  of  religion  is  full  of  just  this  kind  of  delu- 
sion. All  mere  logical  handlings  are  vicious,  unless 
they  are  so  far  qualified  by  insight  that  insight  gives 


268  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

the  truth,  and  tlien,  of  course,  they  are  not  wanted. 
Indeed,  there  is  nothhig  in  which  the  world  is  so 
miserably  cheated,  as  in  the  admiration  it  yields  to 
what  is  most  logically  deductive  concerning  moral  and 
religious  questions.  It  is  even  the  worst  kind  of  fault, 
unless  it  be  only  meant,  as  it  often  is  when  we  say  it, 
that  they  are  written  with  true  intellectual  insight, 
which  is  a  very  different  matter. 

But  we  must  have  a  theology,  some  will  say  ;  how  can 
religion  or  religious  truth  get  body,  or  any  firm  hold 
of  the  world,  without  a  theology  ?  And  what  is  the- 
ology ?  It  is  very  commonly  supposed  to  be  a  specu- 
lated system  of  doctrine,  drawn  out  in  propositions 
that  are  clear  of  all  metaphor  and  are  stated  in  terms 
that  have  finally  obtained  a  literal  and  exact  sense. 
But  no  such  system  is  possible,  for  the  very  plain 
reason  that  we  have  no  such  terms.  We  have  a  great 
many  words  that  have  lost  their  roots  or  have  come 
to  be  so  far  staled  by  use  that  the  figures  in  their 
bases  do  not  obtrude  themselves  on  our  notice.  But  if 
we  suppose,  as  we  very  commonly  do  in  all  the  logi- 
cal uses  of  speculation,  that  they  have  become  exact 
coins,  or  algebraic  notations  for  the  ideas  represented 
by  them,  we  are  in  a  great  mistake.  When  they  are 
framed  into  propositions  there  is  always  some  element 
of  figure  in  the  other  words  conjoined,  or  in  the  gram- 
mar of  their  prepositions,  which  makes  a  figure  of  the 
sentences  constructed.  If  there  is  anything  we  miss 
in  the  really  supreme  merit  of  Professor  Whitney's 
late  book  on  language,  it  is  a  chapter  showing  at  what 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  269 

point  the  constructive  processes  of  language  leave  it, 
as  regards  the  possibilities  of  an  exact  notation,  for 
the  uses  of  moral  and  religious  speculation.  His 
beautiful  analysis  and  fine  critical  perception  would 
have  shown  us,  I  have  no  question,  that  theologic  and 
moral  science  are  about  as  deep  in  metaphor  as 
prophecy  and  poetry  themselves. 

Some  years  ago  one  of  our  most  brilliant,  most 
esteemed  teachers  of  theology  published  a  discourse 
on  "  The  Theology  of  the  Intellect  and  the  Feeling," 
meaning,  it  will  be  seen,  by  the  Feeling,  that  which 
feels,  or  takes  the  poetic  sense  of  figures  and  images ; 
the  same  that  I  am  calling  here  the  Imagination.  But 
the  Intellect,  be  conceives,  comes  in,  after  all  such 
vague  presences  or  presentations  to  the  feeling,  gathers 
up  the  varieties,  eliminates  the  contrarieties,  and  puts 
down  in  the  terms  of  an  exact  language  the  real 
Christian  doctrine.  Taking,  for  example,  the  mani- 
fold various  terms  and  figures  employed  in  the  meta- 
phoric  draperies  of  scripture  language  relating  to  the 
beginning  of  a  new  life, — "repent,"  "believe,"  "make 
you  a  new  heart,"  "  be  converted,"  "  born  again," — 
"  the  intellect,"  he  says,  "  educes  light  from  the  col- 
lision of  these  repugnant  phrases,  and  then  modifies 
and  reconciles  them  into  the  doctrine," — ^literal  now, 
exact,  full-made  theology, — "  that  the  character  of  our 
race  needs  an  essential  transformation  hy  an  interjyosed 
influence  from  Grod.^^  It  does  not  appear  to  be  observed, 
that  this  very  sentence,  which  affirms  the  great, 
inevitable,  scientific   truth  of  regeneration,  is  itself 


270  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

packed  full  of  figures  and  images,  and  is,  in  fact, 
interpretable  only  with  more  difficulty  and  more 
ambiguity  than  any  and  all  the  figures  proposed  to  be 
resolved  by  it.  Thus,  for  a  first  metaphor,  we  have 
''  character '."^"^  and  what  is  character?  Literally  it  is 
mark  or  distinction.  Then  naturally  it  is  one  thing, 
morally  another,  spiritually  another.  Is  it  external? 
Is  it  internal  ?  Is  it  made  up  of  acts  and  habits  ?  Is 
it  the  general  purpose  of  the  man  ?  Or  is  it  a  birth 
into  good  affections  by  the  Spirit  of  God  ?  Or  is  it 
both  ?  There  is  almost  nothing  we  conceive  so 
variously,  and  unsteadily,  and  advance  upon  by  so 
many  rectifications,  even  to  the  end  of  life,  as  this 
matter  of  character.  "  Needs  : "  and  by  what  kind  of 
necessity  ?  Is  it  in  the  sense  that  we  have  full  capac- 
ity, which,  in  our  perversity,  we  will  not  use  ?  Or  in 
the  sense  that  we  have  no  capacity  ?  Or  that  we  have 
a  receptive,  or  a  partly  receptive  and  partly  active 
capacity  ?  Do  we  need  the  change  before  believing, 
or  after  believing,  or  by  and  through  believing  ? 
"  Essential  transformation.''^  Here  we  have  two  figures 
dead  enough  to  be  packed  together,  and  which  yet,  if 
they  were  less  dead,  could  hardly  be  joined  at  all. 
One  relates  to  what  is  inmost,  viz.,  to  what  is  in  the 
essence  of  a  thing,  and  the  other  to  what  is  outmost, 
the/orm  of  a  thing.  In  what  sense  then  essential? 
In  what  a  transformation  ?  In  how  many  senses 
lighter  and  deeper  can  the  words  be  taken  ?  ^'Liter- 
posed  iiifluence : "  first  a  word  of  pose  or  position ; 
secondly,  a  word  of  motion,  or  Jlow.     And  what  is 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  271 

the  inflow  or  influence,  and  what  is  it  posited  between  ? 
The  Gospel  revelation  by  Christ's  life  and  death  is  one 
mode  of  influence  ;  the  power  of  the  Spirit  is  another ; 
the  power  of  sacraments  another ;  the  human  exam- 
ple of  Jesus  another.  The  influence  may  be  summed 
up  in  truth,  or  it  may  be  God's  direct  agency  one  side 
of  truth.  Could  we  but  settle  this  one  word  influence 
alone,  about  all  the  great  church  controversies  of 
eighteen  centuries  would  be  settled.  "  From "  :  in 
what  sense  from  ?  Is  it  hy  God  from  without  ?  Or 
hy  God  within  ?  Is  it  hy  God  directly,  or  hy  God 
medially,  as  in  the  Gospel  ?  Or  is  it  only  from  God 
as  the  source  in  whatever  manner  ?  Now  I  do  not 
mean  that,  knowing  who  the  author  of  this  general 
proposition  is,  we  have  so  many  doubts  about  his 
meaning  in  it,  but  that,  bringing  to  it  all  the  beliefs 
and  misbeliefs  of  the  world  and  the  age,  we.  have  all 
these  and  a  full  thousand  other  questions  raised  by 
it.  In  one  view  it  may  be  true  that  it  "  educes  light ; " 
at  any  rate  there  may  be  uses  in  a  proposition  thus 
generalized ;  and  yet  it  was  possible  to  be  made,  only 
because  the  words  were  staled  in  so  many  ambiguities. 
And  all  the  terms  of  theology  are  under  the  same 
conditions.  We  think  we  are  coming  down,  perhaps, 
on  exact  statements,  because  we  are  coming  down 
upon  words  that  forget  their  figTires,  and  yet  the 
propositions  are  all  woven  up  in  figures,  and  cover 
ambiguities  only  the  more  subtle  that  we  do  not  see 
them. 

But  we  must  have  science,  some  will  remember ; 


+ 


V 


272  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

is  there  any  hope  for  theologic  science  left  ?  None  at 
all,  J  answer  most  unequivocally.  Human  language 
is  a  gift  to  the  imagination  so  essentially  metaphoric, 
warp  and  woof,  that  it  has  no  exact  blocks  of  mean- 
ing to  build  a  science  of.  Who  would  ever  think  of 
building  up  a  science  of  Homer,  Shakespeare,  Milton  ? 
And  the  Bible  is  not  a  whit  less  poetic,  or  a  whit 
less  metaphoric,  or  a  particle  less  difficult  to  be  propo- 
sitionized  in  the  terms  of  the  understanding.  Shall 
we  then  have  nothing  to  answer,  when  the  sweeping 
question  is  put,  why  philosophy  and  every  other  study 
should  make  advances,  and  theology  be  only  spinning 
its  old  circles  and  revising  and  re-revising  its  old 
problems  ?  It  must  be  enough  to  answer  that  philoso- 
phy, metaphysical  philosophy,  having  only  metaphor 
to  work  in,  is  under  exactly  the  same  limitation ;  that 
it  is  always  backing  and  filling,  and  turning  and 
returning,  in  the  same  manner ;  that  nobody  can 
name  a  single  question  that  has  ever  been  settled  by 
all  the  systems  it  has  built  and  the  newly  contrived 
nomenclatures  it  has  invented.  Working  always  in 
metaphors  and  fooling  itself,  how  commonly,  by  meta- 
phor, it  gets  a  valuable  gymnastic  in  words,  and  pre- 
pares to  a  more  full  and  many-sided  conception  of 
words.  So  far  it  is  fruitful  and  good,  and  just  so  far 
also  is  the  scientific  labor  of  theology.  After  all  it 
is  simple  insight  in  both,  and  not  speculation,  that 
has  the  true  discernment.  Words  give  up  their  deep- 
est, truest  meaning,  only  when  they  are  read  as  im- 
ages of  the  same. 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  273 

But  we  must  have  definitions,  it  will  be  urged,  else 
we  cannot  be  sure  what  we  mean  by  our  words,  and 
when  we  have  the  definitions,  why  can  we  not  have 
science  ?  But  if  we  mean  by  definitions  an  exact 
literal  measurement  of  ideas,  no  such  thing  is  possi- 
ble. In  what  we  call  our  definitions,  whether  in  the- 
ology, or  moral  philosophy,  we  only  put  one  set  of 
metaphors  in  place  of  another,  and,  if  we  understand 
ourselves,  there  may  be  a  certain  use  in  doing  it,  even 
as  there  is  in  shifting  our  weight  upon  the  other  leg ; 
perhaps  we  make  ourselves  more  intelligible  by  doing 
it.  And  yet  there  is  a  very  great  imposture  lurking 
almost  always  in  these  definitions.  Thus  if  I  may 
define  a  definition,  the  very  word  shows  it  to  be  a 
bounding  off ;  where  it  happens,  not  unlikely,  that  a 
whole  heaven's  breadth  of  meaning  is  bounded  out 
and  lost ;  where  again,  secondly,  it  results  that  the 
narrow  part  bounded  in  and  cleared  of  all  grand 
overplus  of  meaning,  is  just  as  much  diminished  as  it 
is  made  more  clear  and  certain;  and  thirdly,  that 
what  one  has  bounded  out  another  will  have  bounded 
in,  either  in  whole  or  in  part ;  whereupon  debates 
begin,  and  schools  and  sects  arise,  clinging  to  their 
several  half-truths  and  doing  fierce  battle  for  them. 
And  probably  another  and  still  worse  result  will  ap- 
pear ;  for  the  generous  broad  natures  that  were  going 
to  be  captivated  by  truth's  free  images,  having  them 
now  defined  and  set  in  propositional  statements,  will, 
how  often,  be  offended  by  their  narrow  theologic  look 
and  reject  them  utterly.  Nothing  makes  infidels 
more  surely  than  the  spinning,   splitting,  nerveless 


274  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

refinements  of  theology.  This  endeavor,  always  go- 
ing on,  to  get  the  truths  of  religion  away  from  the 
imagination,  into  propositions  of  the  speculative  un- 
derstanding, makes  a  most  dreary  and  sad  history, — 
a  history  of  divisions,  recriminations,  famishings, 
vanishings  and  general  uncharitableness.  Lively,  full, 
fresh,  free  as  they  were,  the  definitions  commonly  cut 
off  their  wings  and  reduce  them  to  mere  pebbles  of 
significance.  Before  they  were  plants  alive  and  in 
flower,  now  the  flavors  are  gone,  the  juices  dried  and 
the  skeleton  parts  packed  away  and  classified  in  the 
dry  herbarium  called  theology. 

We  deplore,  how  often,  with  how  great  concern,  and 
with  prayers  to  God  in  which  we  wrestle  heavily,  our 
manifold  sects  and  divisions.  We  turn  the  matter 
every  way,  contriving  new  platforms  and  better  arti- 
cles of  dogma,  and  commonly  find  that,  instead  of 
gathering  ourselves  into  a  new  and  more  complete 
unity,  we  have  only  raised  new  sects  and  aggravated 
the  previous  distractions.  And  yet  many  cannot  con- 
ceive that  the  gospel  is  a  faith,  only  in  that  way  to  be 
received,  and  so  the  bond  of  unity.  They  are  going 
still  to  think  out  a  gospel,  assuming  that  the  Church 
has  no  other  hope  as  regards  this  matter  but  in  the 
completing  of  a  scientific  theology  ;  which  will  proba- 
bly be  accomplished  about  the  same  time  that  words 
are  substituted  by  algebraic  notations,  and  poetry 
reduced  to  the  methods  of  the  calculus  or  the  loga- 
rithmic tables.  There  was  never  a  hope  wider  of 
reason.     The  solar  system  will  die  before  either  that 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  275 

or  the  hope  of  a  complete  philosophy  is  accomplished. 
No,  we  must  go  back  to  words,  and  compose  our  dif- 
ferences in  them  as  they  are,  exploring  them  more  by 
our  faith  and  less  by  our  speculative  thinking.  Hav- 
ing them  as  a  gift  to  the  imagination,  we  must  stay 
in  them  as  such,  and  feel  out  our  agreement  there  in 
a  common  trust,  and  love,  and  worship. 

See  how  it  is  with  our  two  great  schools  or  sects 
called  Calvinism  and  Arminianism.  The  points  at 
issue  in  the  prepositional  methods  of  their  theology 
are  forever  unreconcilable.  They  stand  over  against 
each  other  like  Gerizim  and  Ebal.  And  yet  they 
have  a  perfect  understanding  when  they  pray  together, 
because  they  pray  their  faith  out  through  their  im- 
aginative forms,  and  drop  the  word-logic  forms  of  the 
Babel  they  before  were  building. 

Again,  we  have  a  grand  fundamental  and  most 
practical  truth  that  we  call  trinity ;  Father,  Son,  and 
Holy  Ghost,  one  God.  These  three  images  are  God 
as  delivered  to  the  imagination,  and  the  grammatic 
threeness  in  which  they  stand  is  a  truth  in  metaphor, 
even  as  the  grammatic  personalities  are  metaphoric 
and  not  literal  persons ;  and  the  God-idea,  figured 
under  these  relativities,  obtains,  in  the  resulting  mys- 
tery, the  largest,  freshest,  liveliest  impression  possi- 
ble. In  what  manner,  at  what  point,  the  unity  and 
plurality  meet,  we  may  never  know.  We  only  know 
that  the  unity  is  absolute  and  eternal ;  and  the  three- 
ness, either  a  necessary  incident  of  God's  revelations, 
or  of  his  own  self-conscious  activities  considered  as 


276  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

the  revelation  of  himself  to  himself ;  in  either  case 
eternal.  We  also  know  that  using  the  three  freely  as 
the  mind's  necessary  instrumentations,  all  speculation 
apart,  we  have  God  as  he  is,  and  coalesce  in 
him  as  in  perfect  unity.  But  we  cannot  rest  in 
this,  we  must  be  wiser ;  so  we  begin  to  speculate  and 
make  up  a  theology.  Have  we  not  three  persons 
here  represented  by  the  personal  pronouns  of  gram- 
mar ?  And  what  are  persons  but  self-conscious,  free- 
will beings,  such  as  we  know  them  to  be  and  are  in 
fact  ourselves  ?  Now  we  have  gotten  our  three  per- 
sons out  of  the  metaphor-world  into  strict  literality, 
and  are  landed  of  course  in  absolute  tritheism ;  such 
as  permits  no  unity  at  all.  We  have  no  unity  even  if 
we  say  we  have,  but  only  a  three  as  absolutely  plural 
as  John,  James,  and  Peter.  Over  opposite,  seeing 
now  the  very  evident  absurdity  we  are  in,  comes  out 
the  Unitarian,  using  our  same  false  method  over  again, 
so  to  make  up  another  conclusion  just  as  wide  of  the 
truth.  Is  not  a  person  a  person  ?  If  then  God  is  de- 
clared to  be  one  person,  and  again  to  be  three  persons 
in  the  same  sense,  how  are  we  going  to  believe  it  ?  So 
rejecting  the  three  that  were  three  transcendently,  as 
in  metaphoric  type  and  grammar,  he  falls  back  on  the 
one,  the  Father :  he  alone  is  God,  and  reason  is  no 
more  offended.  In  that  one  personality  he  is  thus  a 
person  thought,  a  dogmatic  one  person,  having,  of 
course,  the  exact  type  of  the  human  person.  The  dis- 
ciple of  the  new  speculation  is  greatly  relieved  and 
with  much  self-gratulation.     But  let  him  not  be  sur- 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  277 

prised  to  find,  as  he  goes  on  to  assert  the  Father, 
always  the  Father,  under  the  type  of  a  finite  person- 
ality, that  his  God  is  gradually  losing  dimensions  and 
growing  smaller  and  smaller,  even  to  worship  itself. 
The  three  metaphoric  persons  were  going,  at  once,  to 
save  God's  personality  and  his  magnitudes,  by  the 
maze  and  mystery  created,  but  now  they  are  gone,  and 
the  one  finite  personality  left  sinks  everything  with  it 
to  the  ground ;  so  that  one,  and  another,  and  another 
of  the  great  authors  in  this  key  begin,  spontaneously, 
to  make  up  size  for  their  deity,  by  speaking  of  the 
gods,  and  what  is  due  the  gods.  How  plain  is  it  now 
that,  if  we  all  could  take  the  scripture  one  and  three, 
as  given  to  the  imagination,  pouring  in  at  that  free 
gate  to  get  our  broadest  possible  knowledge  of  God, 
we  should  neither  starve  in  the  one,  nor  be  distracted 
in  the  three,  nor  worried  by  controversy  with  each 
other  as  regards  either  one  or  three. 

So  when  we  come  to  the  person  of  Christ ;  what  he 
is  to  the  imagination,  as  the  express  image  of  God, 
God  thus  manifest  in  the  flesh,  is  everything ;  what 
he  is  in  his  merely  human  personality,  and  how  that 
personality  is  related  to  and  unified  with  the  divine 
nature,  is  nothing.  All  is  easy  when  we  take  him  for 
what  of  God  is  expressed  in  him ;  but  when  we  raise 
our  psychologic  problem  in  his  person,  insisting  on 
finding  exactly  what  and  how  much  is  in  it,  and  how 
it  is  compacted,  we  are  out  of  our  limit,  and  our  spec- 
ulation is  only  profane  jangling. 

Exactly  the  same  thing  is  true  in  respect  to  the 


278  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

metaphors  of  the  altar,  ^Yhen  applied  to  signify  Christ's 
saving  Avork  and  sacrifice.  Take  them  as  they  rise  in 
the  apostolic  teachings,  God's  figures  for  the  men  of 
old,  in  the  time  then  present,  and  for  us  in  the  time  now 
present ;  then  as  facts  of  atoning,  now  as  metaphors 
of  the  same ;  and  they  will  be  full  of  God's  meaning, 
we  shall  know  ourselves  atoned  once  for  all  by  their 
power.  But  if  we  undertake  to  make  a  science  out  of 
them,  and  speculate  them  into  a  rational  theory,  it 
will  be  no  gospel  that  we  make,  but  a  poor  dry  jargon 
rather ;  a  righteousness  that  makes  nobody  righteous, 
a  justice  satisfied  by  injustice,  a  mercy  on  the  basis 
of  pay,  a  penal  deliverance  that  keeps  on  foot  all  the 
penal  liabilities.  All  attempts  to  think  out  the  cross 
and  have  it  in  dogmatic  statement  have  resulted  only 
in  disagreement  and  distraction.  And  yet  there  is  a 
remarkable  consent  of  utterance,  we  plainly  discover, 
when  the  cross  is  preached,  as  for  salvation's  sake,  in 
the  simple  use  of  the  scripture  symbols  taken  all  as 
figures  for  the  time  then  present. 

Once  more,  even  that  most  intractable  and  seemingly 
unreducible  division,  in  which  communion  is  broken 
across  the  mere  form  of  Baptism,  when  there  is  an  ad- 
mitted agreement  and  even  ready  acknowledgment  in 
the  living  truth  of  experience,  will  at  once  be  rectified 
by  simply  consentilig  to  make  due  account  of  meta- 
phor. Nothing  is  more  clear  on  the  face  of  the  rite 
than  that  it  has  its  whole  significance  as  a  metaphor ; 
even  as  the  Supper  is  a  metaphor  of  hospitality.  As 
a  mere  touch  of  the  elements  too  in  the  Supper  signi- 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  279 

fies  metaphorically  more  than  the  gorging  of  a  full 
meal,  so  the  mere  touch  of  that  most  pure,  pure  ele- 
ment, water,  signifies  practically  more  of  the  cleans- 
ing than  a  bowl,  or  a  barrel,  or  a  full  bath.  A  sprin- 
kle of  clean  water  makes  clean,  a  washing  of  the  feet 
makes  clean  every  whit.  Nothing  then  is  wanted  for 
communion  here,  but  for  every  brother  to  know  that 
every  other  holds  and  means  a  baptism  in  the  figure 
of  a  cleansing  by  the  Spirit.  Peter  the  apostle  was 
able  to  draw  this  matter  of  baptism  to  a  still  finer 
point.  For  as  Noah's  flood  was  the  world's  cleansing, 
he  declares  that  "  the  like  figure,  even  baptism  [bap- 
tism was  a  figure^  as  we  see,  to  him]  doth  also  now 
save  us."  In  that  water  voyage  of  Noah,  there 
was  baptism  enough,  in  his  view,  to  serve  as  the  anal- 
ogon  of  salvation,  though  the  particular  point  of  the 
story  was  that,  while  the  ark  was  sufficiently  deluged 
with  rain,  Noah  and  his  household  were  kept  dry.  I 
make  nothing  here  of  the  burial  figure,  save  that  the 
cleansing  itself  imports  a  consecration  in  which  there 
is,  of  course,  a  death  to  the  world.  Burials  in  water 
are  not  among  human  events.  Will  not  our  Baptist  bro- 
therhood some  time  awake  to  their  privilege,  in  the 
discovery,  that  they  may  rightly  own  as  the  baptized 
all  such  as  have  truly  meant  baptism,  and  signified 
the  same  faith  with  them  in  God's  all-cleansing  Spirit, — 
which  is  the  all  of  baptism  ?  Go  back  here  to  the 
metaphor  and  keep  that  good,  and  nothing  more  is 
wanted,  or  can,  without  wrong,  be  required  as  the 
gospel  condition  of  acknowledgment  and  unity.  Noth- 


280  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

ing  more  will  be  required  when  the  day  of  promised 
brotherhood  and  liberty  arrives. 

Here  then  is  the  point  on  which  all  sects  and  divi- 
sions may  be  gravitating  and  coming  into  settled 
unity.  What  is  wanted,  above  all  things,  for  this  end 
is  not  that  we  carefully  compose  our  scientific  theol- 
ogy, but  that  we  properly  observe,  and  are  principally 
concerned  to  know  God  in  his  own  appointed  images 
and  symbols.  We  must  get  our  light  by  perusing  the 
faces  of  his  truth ;  we  must  behold  him  with  reverent 
desire  in  the  mirrors  that  reveal  him,  caring  more  to 
have  our  insight  purged  than  to  spin  deductions  and 
frame  propositions  that  are  in  the  modes  of  science  or 
of  system.  We  shall  of  course  have  opinions  concern- 
ing it.  A  considerable  activity  in  opinions  is  even 
desirable,  because  it  will  sharpen  our  perceptiveness 
of  the  symbols  and  draw  us  on,  in  that  manner,  to- 
wards a  more  general  and  perfect  agreement.  Only 
our  opinions  must  be  opinions,  not  laws,  either  to  us 
or  to  anybody ;  perhaps  they  will  change  color  some- 
what even  by  to-morrow.  We  must  also  understand 
that  our  opinions  or  prepositional  statements  are  just 
as  truly  in  metaphor  as  the  scripture  itself,  only  met- 
aphor probably  which  is  a  good  deal  more .  covert  and 
often  as  much  more  ambiguous.  We  may  draw  as 
many  creeds  as  we  please,  the  more  the  better,  if  we 
duly  understand  that  they  are  standards  only  as  being 
in  metaphor,  and  not  in  terms  of  exact  notation.  None 
the  less  properly  standard  is  the  Nicene  Greedy  that 
it  is  given  visibly  to  the  imagination,  and  has  even  its 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  281 

highest  merit  at  the  point  where  it  takes  on  figure  up 
to  the  degree  of  paradox :  "  God  of  God,  Light  of 
Light,  Yery  God  of  Very  God."  Visibly  absurd,  im- 
possible, false  to  mere  speculation,  it  is  even  the  more 
sublimely,  solidly  true.  There  has  never,  in  fact,  been 
a  dissent  from  it  which  did  not  take  it  away  first  from 
the  imagination  and  give  it  to  the  notional  under- 
standing. 

And  yet  there  will  be  many  who  can  see  no  possi- 
bility, taking  this  view  of  the  Christian  truth,  of  any 
thing  solid  left.  We  set  every  thing  afloat,  they  will 
say ;  nothing  definite  and  fixed  remains  to  be  the 
base-work  of  a  firm-set,  stanchly  effective  gospel. 
What  is  the  Christian  truth  but  a  dissolving  view  of^ 
something  to  be  known  only  by  its  shadows  ?  But 
we  are  easily  imposed  upon  here  by  what  has  no 
such  value  as  we  think.  We  commence  our  think- 
ing process  at  some  point,  we  analyze,  we  deduce, 
we  define,  we  construct,  and  when  we  have  got- 
ten the  given  truth  out  of  its  scripture  images  into 
our  own,  and  made  an  opinion  or  definited  thing  of 
it,  we  think  we  have  touched  bottom  in  it  and  feel 
a  certain  confidence  of  having  so  much  now  estab- 
lished. But  the  reason  is,  not  that  we  have  made  the 
truth  more  true,  but  that  we  have  entered  our  own 
self-assertion  into  it  in  making  an  opinion  or  dogma 
of  it,  and  have  so  far  given  a  positivity  to  it  that  is 
from  ourselves.  And  yet,  the  real  fact  is  exactly  con- 
trary ;  viz.,  that  there  is  just  as  much  less  of  solidity 
in  it  as  there  is  more  that  is  from  ourselves.     We  take 


282  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

up,  for  example,  the  doctrine  so-called  of  repentance, 
and  we  find  a  certain  word  representing  it  which 
means  thinking  over,  changing  the  mind,  and  then 
we  lay  it  down  as  the  positive  doctrine  that  repentance 
is  forming  a  new  governing  purpose.  That  sounds 
very  definite,  quite  scientific  ;  something  we  have  now 
found  tliat  is  clear  and  determinate.  But  it  turns  out, 
after  a  few  years  of  preaching  in  this  strain,  that  the 
truth  we  thought  so  solid  is  so  inadequately  true  after 
all  as  not  to  have  the  value  we  supposed.  As  a 
merely  one-figure  doctrine  it  is  of  the  lean-kine  order, 
and  we  get  no  sense  of  breadth  and  body  in  the  change 
defined,  till  we  bring  in  all  the  other  figures,  the 
"  godly  sorrow,"  the  "  carefulness,"  the  ''self-clearing," 
the  "  indignation,"  the  "  fear,"  the  "  vehement  desire," 
the  "zeal,"  the  "revenge,"  conceiving  all  these  fruits 
to  be  from  God's  inward  cogency  working  thus  in  us  to 
will  and  to  do.  Now  we  take  broad  hold ;  these  are 
the  solidities  of  a  completely,  roundly  adequate  concep- 
tion. 

We  never  so  utterly  mistake  as  when  we  attempt  to 
build  up  in  terms  of  opinion  something  more  solid  and 
decisively  controlling,  than  what  comes  to  us  in  the 
terms  of  the  imagination  ;  that  is,  by  metaphor.  The 
Scriptures,  we  repeat  how  often,  commend  us  to 
"  sound  doctrine,"  and  assuming  this  to  be  the  same 
as  doctrine  well  speculated,  we  begin  to  magnify  and 
breed  sound  doctrine  after  that  fashion ;  whereas,  they 
only  mean  sound-making,  health-restoring  [hygeian] 
doctrine ;  which  is  sure  enough  indeed  to  keep  good, 
because  it  is  sure  to  be  wanted,  having  always  in  it 


TO    THE    IMAGINATION.  283 

the  spirit  of  power,  and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound  mind. 
The  most  food-full  doctrine  is,  in  this  view,  the  sound- 
est. Is  there  any  theologic  article  or  church  confession 
more  solid  and  fixedly  standard-like  in  its  ideas  than 
the  Psalms  and  the  Prophets  ?  The  parables  of  Christ, 
— what  are  they  but  images  and  figures  visible  given 
to  the  imagination  ?  We  turn  them  ja,  thousand  ways 
in  our  interpretations,  it  may  be,  but  we  revere  them 
none  the  less  and  hold  them  none  the  less  firmly,  that 
they  are  rich  enough  to  justify  this  liberty.  A  partic- 
ular one  of  them  in  fact,  the  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son,  is  even  a  kind  of  pole-star  in  the  sky  of  the 
gospel,  about  which  formulas,  and  creeds,  and  confes- 
sions, are  always  revolving  in  ephemeral  changes, 
while  that  abides  and  shines.  Again  there  is  nothing, 
as  we  all  are  wont  to  feel,  that  is  more  solid  than  our 
heavenly  state,  and  we  call  it,  in  that  view,  the  city 
that  hath  foundations.  And  yet  we  have  no  formula 
that  defines  it,  and  no  single  word  of  description  for 
it  that  is  not  confessedly  a  figure.  It  is  a  garden,  a 
tabernacle,  a  bosom  of  Abraham,  a  new  Jerusalem,  a 
city  of  God  cubically  built  on  stones  that  are  gems. 
If  then,  nothing  is  solid,  as  some  will  be  ready  to 
judge,  that  is  representable  only  in  terms  of  the  imag- 
dnation,  our  hopes  are  all  afloat  in  the  sky,  or  on  the 
;air,  and  our  heaven  is  but  a  phantom-state  which, 
determinately  speaking,  is  just  nowhere  and  nothing. 
And  yet  we  do  not  think  so.  No  Christian  man  or 
woman  has  any  such  misgiving.  Again,  why  is  it 
that  no  doo-matic  solution  of  the  cross,  solid  enou2:h 


284  OUR    GOSPEL    A    GIFT 

to  hold  the  faith  of  the  world,  has  ever  yet  been  made, 
while  the  gospel  figures  of  it  are  accepted  always, 
rested  in  and  regarded  as  the  pillar  of  all  comfort  and 
hope  ? 

Glancing  for  just  a  moment  at  one  or  two  more 
strictly  human  illustrations,  what  utterance  of  mortal 
mind,  in  what  scheme  of  theology  or  church  confes- 
sion, has  ever  proved  its  adamantine  property  as 
fixedly  as  the  Apostles'  Creed  ?  And  yet  there  is  not  a 
single  word  of  opinion  or  speculated  wisdom  in  it.  It 
stands  wholly  in  figure,  or  what  is  no  wise  different, 
in  facts  that  were  given  to  be  figure.  But  if  there  is 
any  realm  of  central,  astronomic  order,  it  has  been 
this  fact-form,  truly  Copernican  confession,  about 
which  all  the  orbits  of  all  the  saints,  have,  in  all  ages, 
been  revolving. 

Summon  again  for  comparison  two  such  masters  of 
doctrine  as  Turretin  and  Bunyan  ;  one  a  great  expoun- 
der in  the  school  of  dogma,  and  the  other  a  teacher 
by  and  before  the  imagination.  Which  of  these  shall 
we  say  is  the  more  solid  and  immovably  fixed  in 
authority?  The  venerable  dogmatizer  is  already  far 
gone  by,  and  will  ere  long  be  rather  a  milestone  of 
history  than  a  living  part  of  it.  His  carefully  squared 
blocks  of  opinion  and  the  theologic  temple  he  built  of 
them  for  all  ages  to  come  are  already  time-worn, 
crumbling  visibly  away,  like  the  stones  of  Tyre,  and 
as  if  the  burden  of  Tyre  were  upon  them.  But  the 
glorious  Bunyan  fire  still  burns,  because  it  is  fire, 
kindles  the  world's  imagination  more  and   more,  and 


TD    THE    IMAGINATION.  285 

claims  a  right  to  live  till  the  sun  itself  dies  out  in  the 
sky.  His  Pilgrim  holds  on  his  way  still  fresh  and 
strong  as  ever,  nay,  fresher  and  stronger  than  ever, 
never  to  be  put  off  the  road  till  the  last  traveler 
heavenward  is  conducted  in.  And  yet  he  saw  before- 
hand that  he  was  likely  to  be  considered  a  very  light 
kind  of  teacher,  and  bespoke  more  patience  than  some 
could  think  he  deserved. 

"But  must  I  needs  want  solidness,  because 

By  metaphors  I  speak  ?    Were  not  God's  laws. 

His  gospel  laws,  in  olden  time,  set  forth. 

By  Shadows,  Types,  and  Metaphors  ?  Yet  loth 

WiU  any  sober  man  be  to  find  fault 

With  them,  lest  he  be  found  for  to  assault 

The  highest  Wisdom  !    No,  he  rather  stoops. 

And  seeks  to  find  out,  by  what  'Pins,'  and  'Loops,* 

By  'Calves,'  and  'Sheep,'  by  'Heifers,'  and  by  'Rams,' 

By  'Birds,'  and  'Herbs,'  and  by  the  blood  of  'Lambs,' 

God  speaketh  to  him  ;  and  happy  is  he 

That  finds  the  Light  and  Grace  that  in  them  be." 


IX. 

POPUUE  GOVERNMENT  BY  DIVINE  EIGHT.* 


Jer.  30:21.  And  their  nobles  shall  be  of  themselves,  and  their 
governor  shall  proceed  from  the  midst  of  them ;  and  I  will  cause 
him  to  draw  near,  and  he  shall  approach  unto  me:  for  who  is  this 
that  engaged  his  heart  to  approach  unto  me?  saith  the  Lord. 

Taken,  as  by  the  sound,  these  words  appear  to  be  a 
kind  of  American  Scripture ;  and  still  more,  when 
the  notably  English  word  "  nobles  "  is  substituted,  as 
it  should  be  in  correct  translation,  by  the  singular 
word  chief  or  leader.  Then  the  declaration  is  that 
God  will  now  be  united  to  their  chief  or  governor,  so 
that  while  he  is  one  of  the  people, — exalted,  or  called 
from  among  themselves, — he  shall  consciously  and 
even  visibly  rule  by  a  divine  sanction.  In  the  restora- 
tion at  hand,  it  shall  not,  in  other  words,  be  as  it  was 
before,  when  the  kings  and  captains  of  the  land  were 
so  often  idolaters,  or  infidels,  but  the  discipline  the 
people  have  had  in  their  bitter  captivity  shall  have 
brought  them   and  their   rulers  in,  at  last,  to  God, 

*  Delivered  on  the  day  of  the  National  Thanksgiving,  Nov.  24, 
1864,  in  the  South  Church,  Hartford,  before  the  congregations 
of  that  and  the  South  Baptist  Churches. 

(286) 


POPULAR    GOVERNMENT.  287 

and  given  to  their  government  a  crowning  authority 
under  religious  ideas  and  sentiments.  "And  their 
chief  shall  be  of  themselves,  and  their  governor  shall 
proceed  from  the  midst  of  them;  and  I  will  cause 
him  to  draw  near,  and  he  shall  approach  unto  me ;  for 
who  is  this  that  engaged  his  heart  to  approach  unto 
me  ?  saith  the  Lord  "  ; — who,  that  is,  but  me,  by  my 
own  strong  Providence  in  their  captivity,  and  the 
restoration  now  of  their  lately  broken  country  and 
government  ? 

Just  as  we  ourselves,  in  this  dreadful  war-struggle 
by  which  we  are  trying  to  vindicate  and  establish  our 
shattered  unity,  have  our  public  feeling  itself  so  visi- 
bly tempered  by  religion,  and  have  it  even  as  a  pleas- 
ure, in  our  proclamations,  dispatches,  and  speeches,  to 
submit  ourselves,  in  homage  and  trust,  to  the  sacred 
name  and  Providential  rule  of  God.  Just  as  now, 
for  the  first  time,  we  issue  a  religious  coin,  with  the 
motto  :  "  In  God  ive  trusts  Just  as  many  too  of  our 
countrymen,  dissatisfied  with  the  irreligious  or,  at 
least,  unreligious  accident,  by  which  our  Constitution 
omits  even  the  mention  of  God,  began  a  year  ago,  and 
this  day  are  again  assembled  in  Philadelphia,  to  ad- 
vocate the  memorializing  of  Congress  for  an  amend- 
ment, among  others,  to  the  Constitution,  that  shall 
make  some  fit  acknowledgment  of  God  and  of  the 
fact  that  human  government  stands  in  true  authority 
only  when  it  rules  in  the  emphasis  of  religious  senti- 
ments and  sanctions. 

What,  I  propose,  accordingly,  on  the  present  occa- 
sion, is  to  follow  the  train  of  suggestion  started  by 


288  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

the  words  of  the  prophet,  showing  especially  this; 
that  popular  governments,  or  such  as  draw  out  their 
magistracies  by  election  from  among  the  people  them- 
selves, are  not  likely  to  be  completed  at  the  first,  but 
have  commonly  to  be  completed  historically  afterward, 
and  get  their  moral  crowning  of  authority  by  a  pro- 
cess of  divine  discipline  more  or  less  extended.  How 
this  process  works,  in  our  own  case,  it  will  be  my 
endeavor  to  show.  And  I  hope  to  make  it  appear,  to 
the  satisfaction  of  you  all,  that  we  are  now  come  to 
the  final  establishment  of  our  government  in  those 
religious  sentiments  and  ideas,  which  are  at  once  the 
deepest  bases  and  highest  summits  of  a  genuine 
state  authority.  This,  I  think,  we  shall  discover  and 
even  thankfully  accept,  as  being  the  true  meaning  of 
the  present  awful  chapter  of  our  history.  No  people 
of  the  world  were  ever  sheltered  under  institutions  so 
genial  and  benign  as  ours.  They  have  yielded  us 
blessings  of  freedom  and  security  hitherto,  which  no 
nation  of  mankind  has  ever  enjoyed  in  the  same  de- 
gree. But  our  sense  of  allegiance,  or  civic  obligation 
under  these  institutions,  we  have  always  felt  and  now 
more  than  ever  perceive,  has  hitherto  been  thin  and 
flashy ;  as  if  they  were,  after  all,  inventions  only  of 
man  and  not  the  ordinance  of  God.  What  more 
stunning  evidence  could  we  have  than  the  fact  of  this 
horrid  rebellion, — a  whole  third  of  the  nation  renounc- 
ing their  allegiance,  even  as  by  right,  without  so  much 
as  an  apparent  thought  of  crime !  In  this  view  let  us 
welcome  God's  process  of  training  and  see  if  we  can 
trace  it. 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  289 

Before  proceeding,  however,  with  the  more  direct 
matter  of  our  inquiry,  let  us  first  glance  a  moment  at 
the  philosophic  foundations  of  government,  that  we 
may  clear  a  way  for  the  exposition  of  fact  that  is  to 
follow. 

The  more  deeply  we  consider  this  matter  of  civil 
government,  the  more  nearly  impossible  it  will  be,  on 
mere  grounds  of  philosophy,  to  construct  a  govern- 
ment without  some  reference  to  a  Supreme  Being. 

Thus  if  we  say  that  the  law  is  to  be  grounded  in 
right,  right  is  a  moral  idea,  at  whose  summit  stands 
God,  as  the  everlasting  vindicator  of  right.  If  we 
imagine  that  mere  enforcements  will  create  obligation, 
apart  from  any  moral  consideration  whatever,  we  have 
only  to  observe  that  when  statutes  are  enforced  by 
fines,  no  good  citizen  is  satisfied  because,  having 
broken  the  statute,  he  has  paid  the  fine.  Enforce- 
ments create  fear  but  never  obligation.  True  obliga- 
tion towers  above  all  enforcements.  No  touch  of  it 
is  ever  felt,  till  the  subject  hears  the  state,  unseen 
yet  somehow  divine,  commanding  through  the  laws 
enacted. 

If  we  imagine  that  the  human  will  of  magistrates 
may  somehow  create  law  and  wield  authority,  what 
do  we  find,  in  every  real  government,  but  that  the 
magistrates  themselves  are  as  truly  bound  by  the  laws 
as  the  private  subjects  are  ;  and  the  insensible,  corpo- 
rate, everywhere  electric  presence  of  the  state  will 
have  magistrates  and  people  all  alike  submitted  to  it, 
as  the  instrumentalities  and  objects  of  its  sway  ? 


290  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

How  plain  is  it,  too,  that  civil  obligation  takes  hold 
of  the  conscience,  whenever  it  is  truly  fastened  upon 
the  subjects  of  government !  And  what  is  the  con- 
science, but  that  summit  of  our  nature  where  it 
touches  God  ? 

Nor  is  it  any  objection  that  the  subjects  of  many 
real  governments  are  idolaters  and  have  no  rational 
conception  of  God.  Enough  that  their  conscientious 
obligations  under  law  will  reach  higher  than  their 
understanding,  accepting  with  implicit  and  potential 
homage  the  Being  whom,  as  yet,  they  do  not  think  or 
know. 

Regarding  the  state  then  as  having  a  legitimate 
and  proper  right  of  government  only  when  it  is  a 
factor,  so  to  speak,  in  the  Divine  Government  itself, 
it  becomes  a  very  considerable  question,  when  it  may 
be  so  considered.  I  cannot  undertake,  of  course,  to 
settle  all  the  difficult  points  of  casuistry  that  may 
here  be  raised.  I  am  not  required  to  show  whether 
the  governments  in  Poland,  France,  and  Mexico  are 
the  ordinance  of  God,  nor  whether  the  governments 
of  Charles  I.  and  Louis  XYI.  have  ceased  to  be.  It 
must  be  enough  that  government,  in  the  ordinary  con- 
dition of  mankind,  is  universal,  ji^st  as  gravity  is 
universal  in  matter.  And  as  gravity  is  just  as  real 
and  practically  the  same  to  them  that  do  not  know  it, 
as  to  them  that  do,  so  is  God's  ordinance  of  govern- 
ment the  same  to  them  who  only  have  it  by  impression, 
as  to  them  who  have  it  by  knowledge  or  opinion.  The 
real  fact  is  that  we  have  a  nature  configured  inwardly 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  291 

to  tlie  civil  state,  and  are,  in  fact,  civil-society  crea- 
tures. "We  do  not  even  conceive  the  possibility  of 
living  without  government.  We  fly  to  it,  even  the 
world  over,  as  the  necessary  shelter  of  our  life.  It 
may  be  this  or  that,  it  may  be  in  the  chieftain  of  a 
clan  or  tribe,  it  may  be  a  wild,  ungenial,  or  even  a 
bloody  and  barbaric  absolutism  ;  be  it  what  it  may,  the 
civil-society  nature  invests  it  with  a  gloomy  and  blind 
sovereignty,  and  bows  to  it  as  to  some  higher  kind  of 
being,  closer  to  God  or  the  gods.  And  so  the  world 
is  parceled  off,  in  all  ages,  into  governments  in  the 
most  incongruous  and  grotesque  as  well  as  the  most 
august  shapes,  yet  all  alike,  with  only  here  and  there 
an  exception,  received  with  unquestioning  homage,  and 
bearing  rule  in  acknowledged  right  and  authority. 

Furthermore,  as  civil  government  is  one  of  the 
greatest  interests  of  mankind,  there  is  either  no  such 
thing  as  Providence,  or  else  it  must  also  be  one  of  the 
principal  cares  of  Providence.  And  it  will  almost 
always  be  felt  that  the  government  in  power  is  in 
such  a  sense  historic,  that  it  could  not  well  be  different 
from  what  it  is.  In  that  view  it  vdll  be  accepted  as  a 
kind  of  Providential  creation.  And  this  is  very 
specially  true  of  our  own.  It  was  not  necessary  for 
God  to  give  it  authority  by  saying  from  the  sky : 
"  This  is  from  me."  Enough  that  if  we  do  not  hear 
the  voice,  we  feel  the  hand.  First,  there  is  given  us  a 
beginning  here,  in  provinces,  or  colonies,  hereafter  to 
be  called  states.  We  are  set  crystallizing,  as  such,  in 
the  bosom  of  the  common  law  of  England,  receiving, 


292  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

in  that  manner,  all  the  great  principles  of  right  and 
liberty  that  are  the  heritage  of  Englishmen.  Next,  we 
are  cut  off  from  all  distinctions  of  blood,  which  might 
give  us  a  possible  king  and  nobility.  And  so,  when 
we  came  to  institute  a  frame  of  government  we  were 
literally  cornered  into  just  the  government  we  have. 
We  must  be  states  and  also  the  United  States.  AVe 
had,  in  fact,  the  name  upon  us  before  we  spoke  it,  and 
the  Constitution  in  us  before  we  saw  it  on  paper. 
The  Philadelphia  Convention  did  scarcely  more,  in 
fact,  than  draw  out  the  constitution  already  framed  by 
Almighty  God  in  the  historic  cast  of  our  nation  itself. 
We  do  not  all  say  this  or  see  it ;  many  of  us  do  not 
see  distinctly  any  thing,  but  that  certain  men  asserted 
certain  magic  formulas,  which  are  conceived  to  have 
done  everything  for  us.  Still  we  have  the  feeling,  all 
of  us,  that  we  have  just  the  government  that  belongs 
to  us  ;  which  is,  in  fact,  the  same  thing  as  a  feeling 
that  it  is  the  creature  of  God's  Providence.  Moral 
and  religious  ideas  come  slow  and  arrive  late,  but 
what  we  have  had  implicitly  as  a  feeling  is  now,  I 
trust,  to  be  felt  more  distinctly,  and  even  formally 
thought  and  acknowledged. 

Leaving  now  these  generalities  behind  us,  we  go  on 
to  sketch  the  process  by  which  our  American  govern- 
ment is  to  be  thus  consummated  and  to  become  a  full- 
toned,  proper  government,  under  moral  and  religious 
ideas.  I  call  it  a  process ;  and  as  every  such  process 
advances  by  crises,  not  by  an  imperceptible  growth, 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  293 

there  appear  to  have  been  three  such  crises  that  must 
needs  be  passed.  Let  us  note  them  in  their  order ; 
first,  the  Wo  that  are  ah^eady  passed,  and  then  the 
third,  which  we  are  passing  novf. 

First,  we  have  the  stage  of  self-assertion  or  declared 
Independence,  in  which  our  new  state  of  order  began. 
It  was  no  single  champion  that  got  us  in  his  power  and 
fought  us  into  separation,  to  be  the  prize  of  his  own 
chieftainship.  That  would  have  inaugurated  a  mon- 
archy or  absolute  government,  not  a  free  and  popular 
government.  We  undertook,  as  a  people,  just  opposite 
to  this,  to  champion  our  own  right  and  assume  a  new 
civil  condition  for  ourselves.  And  this  we  should 
naturally  do,  by  reverting  to  principles  conceived  to 
be  most  fixed  and  absolute.  To  separate  was  to  rebel, 
and  rebellion  could  stand  by  no  mere  argument  of 
liking,  or  convenience,  or  interest,  or  passion.  We 
began  thus  to  conceive  that  we  had  certain  inborn 
natural  rights,  and  A'ery  soon  also  to  maintain  them 
by  a  stiff  and  sturdy  assertion ;  sometimes,  it  would 
seem,  by  a  considerable  over-assertion. 

In  some  cases,  our  leaders  had  been  considerably 
affected  by  the  political  theories  of  Housseau  and 
other  French  infidel  writers,  who  began  at  the  point 
of  what  they  called  nature  and  natural  right  in  men, 
contriving  how  civil  society  might  arise,  and  could 
only  arise  lawfully,  by  their  consent,  or  compact,  or 
vote,  and  the  surrender  of  their  individual  rights,  to 
make  up  the  public  stock  of  powers  and  prerogatives 


294  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

in  tlie  state.  In  otlicr  cases  and  parts,  we  had  been 
shaped  historically  by  our  popular  training  in  the 
church,  and  the  little  democracies  of  our  towns  and 
colonial  legislatures,  and  so  had  become  ready,  as  the 
others,  to  make  a  large  assertion  of  our  inborn,  sacred 
rights  and  liberties.  As  a  natural  result,  the  two 
schools  flowed  together,  coalescing  in  the  same 
declarations  of  right,  and  the  same  impeachments  of 
wrong,  followed  by  the  assertion  of  a  common  inde- 
pendence. 

In  this  manner,  without  any  very  nice  considera- 
tion of  our  meaning,  or  precisely  defined  criticism  of 
our  principles,  we  bolted  on  the  world  in  our  famous 
July  declaration.  The  pressure  of  the  time  was  too 
close  to  allow  any  very  deliberate  measurement  of 
ideas.  Appealing  thus  to  "  the  laws  of  nature  and 
of  nature's  God,"  we  declare  it  "to  be  self-evident 
that  all  men  are  created  equal," — a  very  much  easier 
thing  to  say,  than  to  show  wherein  they  are  equal,  or 
that  simply  created  men,  born  into  no  social  and  civil 
distinctions,  have  any  where  existed,  since  the  time 
of  the  creation, — also,  that  "  they  are  endowed,  by 
their  Creator,  with  inalienable  rights,"  to  secure  which 
"  governments  are  instituted,  deriving .  their  just 
powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed."  Arid  so 
we  have  New  England  and  Virginia,  Puritan  church 
order  and  the  doctrine  of  the  French  Encyclopedia, 
fused  happily  together  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Jeffer- 
son, and  the  "  Creator  "  and  his  friends  are  duly  hon- 
ored by  admission  to  a  considerable  place  in  a  really 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  295 

atheistic  bill  or  doctrine.  Our  new  political  order 
which  is  older,  in  fact,  than  this  document,  is  jet 
chronologically  born  of  it, — though  not,  in  any  sense, 
of  the  matter  of  this  preamble.  This  is  not  the  sober 
fact  of  our  history,  but  only  the  paradise  of  the  July 
orators. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  satirize  this  very  dear  chapter 
of  our  nationality.  The  doing  was  grand,  but  the 
doctrine  of  the  doing  was  eminently  crude,  as  Mr. 
Jefferson  very  well  knew  how  to  be.  In  a  certain 
possible  sense  it  was  true,  but  in  the  sense  in  which 
it  is  commonly  understood  it  can  only  operate  and 
has  always  operated  destructively  ;  working  as  a  kind 
of  latent  poison  against  all  government  from  the  first 
day  until  now,  as  we  shall  by  and  by  see. 

The  true  merit  of  this  document,  for  merit  enough 
it  has,  lies  in  the  bill  of  facts  and  grievances  stated 
afterwards,  not  in  the  matter  of  the  preamble.  Proba- 
bly some  of  these  facts  are  a  good  deal  exaggerated, 
but  we  may  take  them  all  together,  and  sum  them  up 
in  a  single  inclusive  impeachment,  which  is  true 
beyond  debate  and  amply  sufficient ;  viz.,  that  the 
British  mother  country  was  holding  us  only  as  prov- 
inces to  be  farmed  for  her  own  uses,  and  not  with  any 
thought  of  benefit  to  us;  keeping  us  for  trade  and 
taxation,  and  place,  and  office,  giving  us  no  voice  in 
the  parliament,  and  permitting  us,  in  fact,  no  future. 
Exactly  this  too,  was  what  every  American  felt ;  this 
was  the  real  grievance  that  stung  our  people,  and  that 
sting  was  God's  inspiration  in  their  bosoms.     And 


296  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

now,  what  living  man,  having  simply  reason  for  his 
attribute,  will  imagine  that  God's  high  Providence 
could  have  meant  this  vast,  almost  continental  region 
of  the  new  world  to  be,  for  all  time,  the  mere  con- 
venience and  farmhold  subserviency  of  a  little  patch 
of  island  three  thousand  miles  away !  We  talk  about 
the  right  of  revolution  and  puzzle  ourselves  much  in 
that  kind  of  question.  There  is  certainly  no  such 
right  in  government  itself,  or  under  government; 
which  is  the  really  new  doctrine  asserted  in  what  is 
called  the  right  of  secession.  If  there  is  any  right  of 
revolution  at  all  it  is  a  right  against  government  that 
is  really  no  government ;  and  it  cannot  stumble  any 
one  to  admit  that  such  a  right  exists.  Be  that  as  it 
may,  we  undertook  no  proper  revolution  of  the  mother 
country,  but  leaving  all  her  laws  and  magistracies  still 
standing  as  before,  we  simply  assert  the  right  to  be, 
and  have  a  future  ourselves.  The  real  fact  was  that 
we  had  the  momentum,  in  our  feeling,  of  too  vast  a 
future,  and  slung  away  the  British  king  and  parlia- 
ment just  because  they  undertook  to  be  the  centre  of 
gravity  for  us,  even  as  an  asteroid  might  for  the  sun. 
Weight  of  being, — ^liere  is  the  real  argument, — weight 
of  being  began  to  be  felt  here,  and  the  laws  of  pro- 
portion, consciously  or  unconsciously  working  in  us, 
threw  us  into  separation,  as  it  were  by  the  laws  of 
arithmetic,  or  what  is  not  far  different,  by  the  sen- 
tence of  God.  We  revolted  transcendentally,  for  rea- 
sons deeper  than  we  conceived ;  such  as  we  could  only 
feel.    The  case  was  peculiar.     There  had  been  many 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  297 

revolutions ;  never  before,  that  I  know,  a  separation 
by  specific  gravity. 

Had  we  been  able  to  conceive  the  matter  in  this 
way,  at  the  thne,  it  would  have  saved  us  the  necessity 
of,  alas !  how  many  pernicious  nostrums,  accepted 
from  that  time  onward  as  maxims  even  of  political 
philosophy.  There  was  no  need  of  adverting  to  some 
original,  barely  created,  ante-civil  equality,  as  the 
paradise  of  all  true  right  and  reason ;  contriving,  with 
Rousseau,  how  we  gave  up,  by  consent,  these  primal 
honors  of  equality,  and  surrendered  this  and  that 
natural  right,  to  make  up  a  pool  of  endowment  large 
enough  for  the  outfit  of  a  government.  We  never 
had,  as  individual  men,  any  one  such  right  to  surren- 
der,—no  right  to  legislate,  make  arrest,  imprison 
other  men,  try  them,  enforce  contracts,  investigate 
titles,  punish  frauds  and  wrong  doings.  Governments 
have  such  rights  because  we  have  them  not,  and  we 
have  them  not  on  the  ground  that  governments  have 
them  for  us.  And  governments  are  as  old  as  we.  AYe 
are  not  born  sole  men  or  monads,  afterwards  if  we 
can  to  come  into  society  and  manufacture  govern- 
ment from  below.  We  are  born  into  civil  society  as 
we  are  into  the  atmosphere;  we  were  already  born 
into  British  civil  society  and  became  legitimate  sub- 
jects of  it ;  this  too,  with  as  little  right  of  consent  as 
whether  we  should  be  born  at  all.  The  only  question 
was  whether,  having  been  grown  as  a  seed  in  the  cap- 
sule of  that  stem,  we  had  a  right  to  get  ripe  and  let 
go  connection,  so  to  become  a  stem  by  ourselves.    No 


298  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

greater  fiction  is  conceivable,  than  that  we  fell  back 
in  our  act  of  separation  from  the  mother  country 
upon  an  original  equality,  to  give  up  a  part  of  the 
same  by  compact,  and  so  become  a  state.  It  is  very 
true  that  we  are  all  equally  human,  equally  en- 
titled, in  the  right  of  our  inborn  conscience  and 
eternity,  to  the  best  possible  chances  of  intelli- 
gence and  character.  But  if  we  undertake  to 
assert  that  we  are  all,  by  nature,  equally  entitled  to  a 
government  by  consent,  and  to  count  one  in  the  public 
suffrage  of  such  a  government,  it  may  be  very  well 
for  us,  Americans,  that  it  is  so  ;  better,  in  fact,  than 
any  thing  else ;  but  I  know  not  where  there  is  any 
such  universal  principle.  A  born  magistracy,  however 
unequal,  be  it  kingly,  or  noble,  is  good  without  con- 
sent, if  only  it  rule  well.  What  can  be  more  preposte- 
rous for  us,  or  a  conceit  more  fatal  to  our  moral 
sobriety,  than  to  assume  that  there  is  no  legitimate 
government  in  the  world  and  never  has  been,  to  the 
present  hour,  but  our  own,  in  the  principle  forsooth 
that  all  governments  "  derive  their  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed  ? "  No  such  consent, 
whether  express  or  implied,  was  ever  a  fact.  It  never 
has  been,  even  with  us.  Our  own  original  constitu- 
tions were  made,  in  general,  by  the  votes  of  property- 
holders.  Elinors  and  women,  that  is  a  full  two-thirds 
of  our  people,  are  excluded  still  from  any  such  con- 
sent, and,  what  is  more,  forbidden  even  the  right  of 
dissent.  We  male  citizens  too,  of  the  living  genera- 
tion, have  never,  in  fact,  had  the  opportunity  of  con- 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  299 

sent  to  the  United  States'  government ;  and  how  little 
any  such  consent  may  signify,  we  plainly  see,  in  the 
fact  that  the  laws  are,  at  this  very  moment,  fighting 
down  with  sword  and  gunpowder,  whole  sections  of 
country  that  have  been  protesting  many  years  against 
its  sovereignty.  They  are  going  to  be  governed,  we 
still  say,  but  where  is  their  consent  ?  Alas,  had  no 
such  half-principle,  or  no-principle  of  consent  been 
asserted,  how  different  might  our  condition  be ! 

Furthermore,  it  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  after  this 
rather  high  sounding  appeal  to  supposed  foundation 
principles  of  government,  in  many  cases  we  did  not 
organize  any  new  government  whatever,  ]}ut  went  on 
generally  with  the  old  state  governments,  just  as  they 
were,  only  declaring  them  to  be  "Independent  States." 
We  did  not  even  declare  ourselves  to  be  a  nation. 
Neither  did  we,  in  fact,  organize  a  nation.  The  Ar- 
ticles of  Confederation  were  only  a  machine  contrived 
to  make  the  states  work  together ;  a  harness  and  not 
a  Constitution.  There  was  a  Congress  and  the  Con- 
gress had  a  President,  or  presiding  officer,  but  there 
was  no  President  of  the  republic ;  no  supreme  court, 
no  criminal  code,  and  no  right  of  criminal  proceeding ; 
no  right  of  taxation  or  impost,  save  by  the  states ;  no 
law,  in  fact,  which  directly  touched  the  person  of  any 
citizen  ;  nothing  but  a  right  to  get  men  and  means  for 
the  common  purposes,  by  requisitions  on  the  states, 
where  the  congress  voted  only  by  states, — each  state, 
great  and  small  alike,  having  a  single  and,  of  course, 
equal  vote.     And  even  then  the  vote  had  no  compel- 


300  POPULxlR    GOYERNMENT 

ling  sanction ;  it  was  simply  an  appeal  to  the  good 
faith  of  the  states.  What,  in  this  view,  had  become 
of  the  ultimate  principles  announced,  with  so  great 
philosophic  pretension,  in  the  preamble  of  the  declar- 
ation ! 

It  was  something,  doubtless,  that  the  states  were 
independent  states,  but  we  had,  as  yet,  no  common 
government ;  for  the  confederation  was  only  a  league, 
and  not,  in  any  sense,  a  government.  But  the  gov- 
ernments, that  is,  the  states,  went  on  bravely  together, 
and  fought  the  battle  finally  through,  held  together 
firmly  by  the  outside  pressure  of  the  war.  Then  came 
the  day  of  trial.  As  soon  as  the  outside  pressure  was 
gone,  the  loose-jointed  machinery  of  the  league  began, 
at  once,  to  fall  apart.  The  states  laid  impost  duties 
in  their  ovfn  right ;  they  often  gave  no  heed  to  the 
requisitions  of  the  congress,  killing  them  as  it  were  by 
simple  silence ;  the  public  credit  gave  way  ;  the  paper 
money  lost  value ;  the  common  devotion  grew  slack, 
collapsing  in  blank  apathy  and  hopeless  discourage- 
ment. Whoever  looks  over  the  sad  picture  given  by 
Mr.  Hamilton,  in  the  Federalist^  will  see  that  a  com- 
plete lapse,  under  atrophy  and  final  extinction,  was 
close  at  hand. 

This  brings  me  to  the  second  stage  or  crisis  in  the 
process  of  our  advance  towards  a  complete  govern- 
ment, that,  viz.,  which  we  passed  in  the  organization 
of  our  National  Constitution.  Here  the  effect  is, 
though  it  is  not  commonly  so  stated,  to  drop  the  mere 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  301 

machine,  or  harness  of  common  working  for  the  states, 
and  create  or  institute  a  proper  government  for  them. 
Before,  the  states  were  sovereign,  and  were  not  sub- 
jects at  all,  in  the  sense  of  being  under  government. 
There  is  now  to  be  a  power  created  that  can  move, 
without  moving  solely  through  states ;  the  new  gov- 
ernment is  to  have  a  new  order  of  subjects,  viz.,  the 
people  themselves ;  holding  them  in  terms  of  direct 
allegiance  to  itself.  "  The  great  and  radical  vice,"  says 
Mr.  Hamilton,  ''  in  the  construction  of  the  [then]  ex- 
isting Confederation,  is  in  the  principle  of  legislation  for 
states  or  governments,  in  their  corporate,  or  collective 
capacities,  as  contra-distinguished  from  individuals." 
(^Federalists  No.  XY.)  And,  again,  "  We  must  incor- 
porate into  our  plan  those  ingredients  that  may  be  con- 
sidered as  forming  the  characteristic  difference  between 
a  league  and  a  government,  and  must  extend  the  author- 
ity of  the  Union  to  the  persons  of  the  citizens,  the  only 
proper  objects  of  government."    (^Federalist,  No.  XV.) 

Hence  the  Constitution  ;  wherein  we  get  a  President 
or  National  Chief  Magistrate,  a  right  of  impost  general, 
of  taxation,  of  military  levy,  of  Courts  of  Admiralty 
and  a  criminal  jurisdiction,  a  Supreme  Court  with  a 
right  of  appeal  from  the  state  courts,  arraignments 
for  treason,  every  thing  that  belongs  to  the  highest 
functions  of  a  supreme  government. 

Now  there  begins  to  be  a  ring  of  authority  and 
decisive  obligation  in  the  civil  order  of  the  Republic. 
The  people  feel  the  contact  now  of  its  laws,  and  rejoice 
in  the   sense  of  a  new  born  nationality.     I  need  not 


302  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

sketch  the  picture ;  sufficient  to  say,  that  no  people 
of  the  earth  were  ever  before  as  free,  and  secure,  and 
prosperous,  and  happy.  Our  progress,  accordingly, 
even  astonished  ourselves.  A  national  feeling,  too, 
was  growing  up,  silently  and  imperceptibly  to  our- 
selves, and  the  state  feeling  was  subsiding  into  a 
more  nearly  domestic  or  household  sentiment.  Both 
kinds  of  allegiance  are  dear  to  us,  but  the  higher 
allegiance  raises  a  higher  devotion ;  even  as  the  flag 
which  represents  it  everywhere,  in  every  sea  and  clime 
and  field  of  common  battle,  becomes  a  symbol  more 
significant  and  sacred  than  the  flags  of  the  states.' 
The  states,  too,  have  consented  knowingly  to  have  it 
so.  They  had  rights  of  government  as  individuals 
never  had,  and  it  is  matter  of  indubitable  and  sober 
history  that  they  did  surrender  certain  very  eminent 
rights,  to  endow  the  prerogatives  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment. And  to  make  it  a  sacrifice  more  free,  and 
give  the  act  a  greater  solemnity,  the  Peoi^le  of  the 
States,  in  place  of  the  State  Legislatures,  themselves 
voted  the  surrender.  And  so  it  results  that  the  states 
are  governments  in  virtue  of  their  reserved  rights, 
and  the  State  General  or  nation  is  a  government  in 
virtue  of  its  contributed  rights.  Both  are  sovereign 
in  their  sphere  ;  both  govern  as  final  authorities.  Only 
it  results,  of  course,  that  the  General  Government  is 
a  higher  and  more  eminent  sovereignty,  according  to 
the  more  eminent  powers  of  peace,  and  war,  and  final 
appeal,  that  are  given  it. 

Still  there  is  a  weak  spot  here,  and  it  was  growing 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  303 

weaker  for  a  long  time,  till  finally,  four  years  ago  the 
bond  was  broken  asunder.  This  Aveak  spot  and  final 
break  of  order  began  at  what  is  called  '^  tlie  State 
Rights  doctrine  "  of  Mr.  Calhoun.  He  takes  ground 
here  exactly  opposite  to  Mr.  Hamilton  and  the  Feder- 
alist^ maintaining  still  "  that  there  is  no  immediate 
communication  between  the  individual  citizens  of  a 
state  and  the  general  government.  The  relation  be- 
tween them  is  through  the  state."  (Letter  to  Gov. 
Hamilton.)  This  being  true,  the  governmental 
function  proper,  viz.,  that  of  authority  to  bind  the 
private  wills  and  consciences  of  personal  subjects,  falls 
to  the  ground,  and  nothing,  after  all,  is  really  gained 
by  the  Constitution.  Still  we  have  no  government  as 
before,  but  only  a  league. 

The  claim  of  Mr.  Calhoun  is  perfectly  unhistorical 
and  against  even  the  letter  of  the  Constitution  beside. 
Has  the  man  who  wants  a  patent  for  his  new  inven- 
tion or  a  copyright  for  his  book,  no  immediate  rela- 
tion to  the  general  government  ?  Has  the  smuggler, 
the  counterfeiter  of  national  bills  and  coins,  the  per- 
petrator of  treason,  the  suitor  of  one  state  claiming 
dues  of  the  citizens  of  another, — have  none  of  these, 
and  ten  thousand  others,  expressly  provided  for  in  the 
Constitution,  no  relation  to  the  general  government 
except  through  the  state  ? 

It  is  very  true  that  the  preamble  of  the  Constitution 
reads :  "  We,  the  people  of  the  United  States  ordain 
and  establish,"  and  it  is  also  true  that  they  voted  the 
Constitution  by  states.     All  the  more  proper  was  it 


304  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

that  tlic  legislatures  liad  never  been  appointed  to  sur- 
render,  but   only   to   administer,  the    State   Rights. 
These  rights,  in  fact,  could  only  be  conclusively  and 
absolutely  surrendered,  just  as  in  fact  they  were,  by 
the  people's  vote.     It  is  also  true,  as  Mr.  Calhoun  so 
pertinaciously  insists,  that  the  surrendering  party  v  ill 
naturally  expect  to  be  judges  themselves  of  what  they 
have  surrendered.     And  so  too,  will  the  party  receiv- 
ing the  surrender.     And  then  whose  judgment  will  be 
strongest  in  effect,  and  uppermost  in  prerogative,  that 
of  a  little,  turbulent,  uneasy  state  faction,  or  that  of  a 
great  nation  having  all  its  mighty  concerns  of  benefit 
and  blessing  embarked  in  the  general  unity  ?     It  is 
Tcry  true  that  the  great  nation  thus  constituted  may 
usurp  to  itself  powers  never  granted,  just  as  the  small 
state  may  factiously  deny  or  reclaim  powers  that  have 
been  granted.     And  if  it  be  hard  upon  the  small  state 
when  it  is  oppressed  in  this  manner  by  the  nation,  it 
might  also  be  hard  upon  a  much  vaster  scale,  if  the 
general  order  of  the  nation  were  compelled  to  submit 
itself  to  the  bramble  judgment    of  a  factious  little 
state    and  consent   after  all  to  be  a  nation  only  by 
sufferance.     It  must  be  enough  for  the  states  that 
exactly  this  kind  of  risk  was  submitted  to  by  them, 
in  their  vote  of  surrender,  and  that  no  such  eminent 
sovereignty  could  be  created  without  a  consent  to  the 
risk.     The   judgment  of   the   stronger  and   superior 
party  must  prevail.     Otherwise,  if  every  state  has  a 
right  to  decide  peremptorily  on  what  she  has  surren- 
dered, she  has  in  fact  surrendered  nothing.     In  that 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  305 

simple  right  asserted,  goes  down  the  "whole  mighty 
fabric  so  carefully  built,  and  the  sublime  fathers  and 
founders  have  their  fool's  errand  revealed  by  the  dis- 
covery that  the  mere  whim  or  conceit  of  a  faction 
has  even  the  right  to  shiver  all  their  work  in  pieces  ! 

But  the  root  of  Mr.  Calhoun's  famous  state  rights 
speculation  was  not,  after  all,  in  the  Constitution,  as 
he  persistently  claimed ;  it  was  deeper  than  he  even 
knew  himself ;  viz.,  in  the  fact  that  he  had  received, 
with  such  implicit  trust,  the  spurious  brood  of  false 
maxims  that  began  early  to  be  hatched  by  our  new 
theories  of  liberty,  and  took  them  into  his  very  life 
with  such  unquestioning  facility,  that,  without  being 
at  all  aware  of  it,  he  had  not  even  the  conception  of 
government  left.  My  words  are  carefully  measured 
when  I  say  this.  I  have  made  exploration  of  his 
writings,  with  this  very  point  in  view,  and  I  do  not 
anywhere  find  that  he  has  the  conception  of  a  real 
government,  or  of  anything  higher  than  a  league. 
Indeed  he  testifies,  in  fact,  himself  that  he  has  not. 
Thus  he  writes  :  (Letter  to  Gov.  Hamilton)  "  accord- 
ing to  our  theory,  governments  are  in  their  nature 
trusts,  and  those  appointed  to  administer  them,  [that 
is,  the  magistrates,]  trustees,  or  agents,  to  execute  trust 
powers.  The  sovereignty  resides  elsewhere,  in  the 
people,  not  in  the  government."  What  kind,  now,  of 
government  is  that  which  has  no  sovereignty  in  itself, 
and  is  under  a  sovereignty  residing  elsewhere  ?  And 
then  what  kind  of  government  there  is  in  a  mere  trus- 
teeship, where,  as  he  continually  insists,  the  trust  may 


306  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

at  any  time  be  revoked  by  the  principal,  as  in  common 
law,  will  be  seen  at  a  glance.  And  if  any  of  us  should 
imagine  that  he  is  speaking  thus  only  of  the  general 
government,  let  it  be  observed,  that  he  says,  "  govern- 
ments "  in  the  plural ;  showing  that  he  has  no  con- 
ception of  a  government  even  in  the  states  which  is 
more  than  a  trust,  terminable  at  will,  and  having  no 
real  sovereignty  ! 

Now  in  this  wretched  figure  of  statesmanship,  you 
perceive  that  he  only  takes  up  what  he  conceives  to 
be  the  accepted  doctrine  of  the  country,  yielding  him- 
self to  it  with  unquestioning  trust ;  for  he  says,  not 
"  according  to  my  theory,"  but  "  according  to  oitr 
theory."  And  he  had  a  good  right  to  that  kind  of 
reference.  What  have  our  orators  and  public  men 
been  saying  and  repeating  for  these  many  years,  but 
what  Mr.  Jefferson  began  to  say  at  the  first, — ^that 
"  government  has  no  right  but  in  the  consent  of  the 
governed ; "  that  "  all  the  powers  of  magistracy  are 
delegated  powers ; "  that  "  the  people  are  sovereign ; " 
that  "  self-government  is  the  inherent  right  of  states ; " 
that  "  the  people  are  the  spring  of  all  authority ; " 
that  "  the  will  of  the  people  is  the  highest  law  ;  " — 
going  on  thus,  without  limit,  in  the  ring  of  as  many 
thousand  changes,  as  our  one  miserably  ambiguous 
and  mischievousl}^  untrue  maxim  will  permit !  Even 
such  a  writer  as  Mr.  Hamilton,  wanting  above  all 
things  a  government,  was  so  far  taken,  unwittingly,  by 
this  kind  of  chaff,  as  to  say :  "  The  fabric  of  American 
empire  ought  to  rest  on  the  solid  basis  of  the  consent 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  307 

of  the  people.  The  streams  of  national  power 
ought  to  flow  immediately  from  that  pure,  original, 
fountain  of  all  legitimate  authority."  (Federalist, 
XXII.)  So  generally  prevalent,  in  short,  and  so 
unquestioningly  received  is  this  kind  of  maxim,  that 
I  run  a  considerable  risk  of  parting  company  with 
this  audience,  if  I  do  not  explain  what  1  mean  by  dis- 
sent from  it. 

I  dissent  from  it  then,  because  it  affirms  the  possi- 
bility of  making  a  real  government  over  man  by  man ; 
a  government,  that  is,  without  ascending  into  the 
region  of  moral  and  religious  ideas,  or  going  at  all 
above  the  mere  wills  of  voters.  As  if  any  forty  thou- 
sand, or  forty  million  wills,  taken  as  mere  wills,  could 
have  any,  the  least  right  to  command,  or  set  obliga- 
tion upon  my  will.  According  to  our  scheme  of 
order  under  the  Constitution,  these  forty  millions  of 
wills  may,  by  their  suffrage,  choose  the  magistrates, 
and  that,  for  us  Americans,  may  be  the  best  scheme 
[possible,  the  ordinance  even  of  God ;  but  it  does  not 
!  follow  that  the  binding  authority  of  such  magistrates 
is  carried  over  into  them  by  distillation,  or  transfer, 
out  of  the  wills  of  the  people.  They  only  designate, 
by  vote,  the  men  who  are  to  be  magistrates,  just  as 
they  are  designated  by  birth  in  other  countries ;  and 
their  oath  before  God  and  God's  ordinance  in  the  Con- 
stitution make  them  more  than  simply  designated 
men  ;  viz.,  magistrates,  with  autliority  to  bind. 

Such  is  the  general  account  to  be  made  of  our  pop- 
ular elective  function  as  related  to  government,  or  to 


308  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

magisterial  right  and  authority.  And  all  the  thou- 
sand axioms  we  repeat,  as  our  political  confession,  are 
in  this  way  easily  reduced  to  the  small  residuum  of 
truth  that  belongs  to  them. 

Thus,  if  we  say  with  Mr.  Calhoun,  that  "  govern- 
ment is  a  trust,"  it  is  very  true  that  the  voters  signify 
a  trust  in  the  men  when  they  vote  for  them ;  and  so 
does  the  woman  signify  a  trust  in  the  man,  when  she 
becomes  his  wife,  but  it  does  not  follow  that  her  act 
of  trust  makes  him  an  agent  and  herself  his  princi- 
pal, with  a  right  to  recall  his  trusteeship  when  she 
pleases.  She  passes  over  no  husbandship  by  her  trust ; 
and  as  little  does  the  voter  pass  over  a  magistracy ; 
neither  one  nor  the  other  has  any  such  functional 
right  to  pass.  To  reason  with  Mr.  Calhoun  that 
wherever  there  is  a  trust,  that  is,  a  confidence  exer- 
cised, there  is  of  course  a  legal  trusteeship,  is  only  to 
play  with  words  without  distinguishing  their  meaning. 
Even  God  himself  would,  in  this  manner,  be  only  our 
trustee  and  we  his  principals. 

So  of  "  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,"  of  which 
we  hear  so  often.  In  our  scheme  of  order,  the  people 
are  certainly  arbiters  in  the  matter  of  election  or 
designation.  And  so,  if  the  magistrates  were  desig- 
nated by  lot,  a  lottery  wheel  or  wheel  of  fortune 
might  be  ;  Ijut  shall  we  all  begin  therefore  to  say  that 
tlie  sovereignty  is  in  the  wlieel,  assuming  it  too  for  a 
universal  axiom  that  wheels  are  inherently  sovereign 
in  states  ?  If  we  only  mean  by  the  sovereignty  of  the 
people,  that,  in  our  particular  scheme,  nobody  gets 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  309 

into  place  save  by  tlie  popular  vote,  that  is  very  well ; 
a  grand  distinction  of  our  system,  and  a  sheet  anchor 
of  security  for  our  liberties.  Still  the  magistrate  is 
sovereign  over  the  people,  not  they  over  him,  having 
even  a  divine  right  to  bind  their  conscience  by  his 
rule. 

In  the  same  way,  we  are  to  interpret  all  we  have  to 
say  of  "  self-government,"  or  "  the  right  of  self-gov- 
ernment." "  By  nature,"  says  Mr.  Calhoun,  following 
after  Mr.  Jefferson,  "  every  individual  has  a  right  to 
govern  himself,"  deducing  then  all  true  right  in  gov- 
ernment from  the  right  of  self-government  in  the 
individual.  He  does  not  see  that  the  word  he  plays 
upon  changes  meaning,  that,  by  self-government  in  a 
person,  we  mean  simply  self-keeping,  or  self-restrain- 
ing, and  suppose  no  such  thing  as  command  or 
authority  at  all,  unless  it  be  in  God,  whose  all-gov- 
erning law  we  are  simply  restraining  ourselves  to  keep. 
Our  particular  people  do,  indeed,  choose  their  magis- 
trates, and  then,  not  governing  the  magistrates,  the 
magistrates  govern  them.  Just  so  near  they  come 
to  self-government  as — not  to  touch  it. 

We  deceive  ourselves  again  by  a  like  imposture  of 
language,  when  we  say :  ''  that  magistrates  have  only 
delegated  powers."  Doubtless  they  are  in  by  election, 
but  there  is  no  passing  over  of  powers  in  the  vote. 
Not  one  of  the  supposed  powers  was  ever  in  the  per- 
sons of  the  voters,  or  by  any  possibility  could  be. 
They  are  all  from  the  Constitution,  the  sanction  of 
God's  Head  Magistracy  going  with  it. 


310  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

You  perceive,  in  this  manner,  liow  we  have  been 
taking  down  all  magistracy  from  the  first  by  trying  to 
get  up  authority  from  below,  that  is,  out  of  man  him- 
self. Our  very  axioms  go  for  the  destruction  of  mag- 
istracy ;  ignoring  always  the  fact  so  grandly  and  even 
philosophically  put  by  an  apostle,  when  he  says : 
"  there  is  no  power  but  of  God."  There  was  never  a 
finer  way  of  government  for  a  people  than  God  has 
given  us,  and  the  special  grounds  of  personal  security 
we  have  in  our  equal  suffrage,  and  the  choosing  of 
our  own  magistrates,  are  the  admirable  distinctions 
we  may  fitly  value  and  cherish.  Still  the  whole 
shaping  of  the  fabric  is  Providential.  God,  God  is  in 
it,  everywhere.  He  is  Founder  before  the  founders, 
training  both  them  and  us,  and  building  in  the  Con- 
stitution before  it  is  produced  without.  Our  whole 
civil  order  is  the  ordinance  of  God  saturated  all 
through  with  flavors  of  historic  religion,  sanctioned 
every  way  by  the  sanction,  and  sanctified  by  the  in- 
dwelling concourse  of  God.  This  it  is  that  crowns 
the  summit  of  our  magistracies,  and  is  going  to  give 
us  finally  the  most  sacredly  binding,  most  indissoluble 
government  in  the  world. 

But  as  yet  we  have  not  come  to  this.  For  a  long 
time  we  have  been  trying,  as  it  were,  to  shake  off 
Providence  and  law  together,  and  we  have  so  far  suc- 
ceeded that  even  the  conception  of  government  was 
beginning  to  be  a  lost  conception.  Perhaps  these 
nostrums  of  atheistic  philosophy  must  needs  reveal 
what  is  in  them  before  they  can  be  duly  corrected. 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  311 

The  conceit  must  be  taken  out  of  us,  enough  to  stop 
us  in  asserting,  for  axioms,  doctrines  that  impugn  the 
right  of  all  governments  in  the  world  beside ;  recoil- 
ing by  a  most  fit  retribution,  that  takes  away  even  the 
idea  of  government  as  for  ourselves.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  we  have,  at  last,  come  to  the  point  where  only 
blood,  much  blood,  long  years  of  bleeding,  can  resanc- 
tify  what  we  have  so  loosely  held  and  so  badly  dese- 
crated. To  what  else  could  we  be  descending,  for 
these  generations  past,  when  winnowing  out,  as  we 
have  been  doing,  all  the  sacred  properties  and  princi- 
ples of  the  great  fabric  God  had  constructed,  and  re- 
ducing it  to  a  mere  budget  of  "  sovereignties,"  "  con- 
sents," "  trusts,"  "  delegations  of  power,"  contrived 
"  balances,"  and  other  as  feeble  pretences  of  philoso- 
phy. And  yet  we  have  not  got  on  with  our  desecra- 
tions as  fast,  and  come  to  the  crisis  of  disruption  as 
soon,  as  might  have  been  expected.  Mr.  Calhoun 
wrote  secession,  but  did  not  live  to  see  it.  Strange  to 
say,  it  did  not  come  half  soon  enough  to  meet  the 
flash  expectation  of  Mr.  Jefferson  himself.  With  a 
lightness  quite  unworthy  of  a  gseat  statesman,  he 
says  :  "  The  late  rebellion  in  Massachusetts,  '  the  Shay 
rebellion,'  has  given  more  alarm  than  I  think  it  should 
have  done.  Calculate  that  one  rebellion  in  thirteen 
states  in  the  course  of  eleven  years,  is  but  one  for 
each  state  in  a  century  and  a  half.  No  country 
should  be  so  long  without  a  revolution."  (Yol.  II., 
p.  331.)  And  taking  his  French  principles  of  govern- 
ment no  one  ever  would  be ;  it  would  have  a  revolu- 
tion every  year. 


312  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

Be  that  as  it  maj,  the  fearful  time  has  finally  come. 
By  the  miwisdoms  put  upon  it  in  the  name  of  philo- 
sophy, and  the  state-right  speculation  that  much  ad- 
mired philosophy  has  nourished,  our  noble  fabric  has 
been  fatally  weakened,  and  is  now  for  the  present  only 
a  possibility,  or  government  in  abeyance.  And  so  the 
great  third  crisis  of  which  I  am  to  speak  is  upon  us. 

Let  us  see  then,  how  we  are  now  going  to  complete 
and  establish  the  state  of  government.  To  get  these 
false  axioms  qualified,  or  expelled,  so  as  to  let  in  the 
rule  of  government,  and  make  it  solid  in  the  people's 
heart  for  ages  to  come,  saving  all  that  is  genuine,  all 
that  is  free,  is  a  truly  difficult  matter  ;  but  it  will  now 
be  done.  Let  it  be  our  thanksgiving  to-day,  that  we 
can  distinguish  the  manner  and  be  certified  of  the 
result. 

In  the  first  place,  what  are  we  doing  but  exactly 
this, — fighting  out  the  most  pestilent  heresy  of  the 
nation,  that  which,  under  the  plausible  name  of  "  state 
rights,"  has  taken  away  every  semblance  of  right  in 
the  government ;  that  which  revokes  every  function 
of  law  without  so  much  as  a  pretext  of  grievance  ?  We 
are  saying  continually  that  slavery  is  the  cause  of  the 
rebellion,  and  it  is  true ;  but  slavery  could  never  have 
drawn  out  a  pin  of  the  public  order,  if  every  pin  had 
not  been  first  loosened  by  the  false  maxims  repeated, 
every  bond  of  unity  and  dignity  shivered  by  the  pre- 
tentious usurpations  of  the  state  rights  arguments  and 
cabals.  What  now  are  we  doing  ?  Marching  down 
these  arguments,  pounding  them  down  with  artillery, 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  .  313 

never  to  stop  marching,  or  stop  pounding,  till  they 
are  trampled  so  low  and  ground  so  fine  that  no  search 
can  find  them.  Our  issue  is  made  up,  we  are  going 
to  have  a  government, — no  more  by  sufferance,  but  a 
government. 

We  are  going  also  to  vindicate  the  supremacy  of 
the  law,  just  where  it  broke  down.  We  chose  a  Pres- 
ident not  liked  in  certain  quarters.  Without  one  pre- 
tended injury  from  him,  whole  states  rebelled.  Now 
we  have  chosen  him  again,  and  the  issue  is  made  up, 
not  upon  some  other,  but  upon  him.  They  shall  come 
back  thus  and  submit  themselves  to  him  at  the  very 
point  of  their  outbreak,  and  the  sacred  right  of 
election  shall  be  vindicated.  So  that  as  he  stole  into 
Washington  to  assume  his  office,  the  leaders  of  rebel- 
lion may  steal  out  of  the  land,  if  they  can,  to  bemoan 
as  exiles  the  ignominy  of  their  treason,  and  die  with 
the  stamp  of  God's  visible  frown  upon  their  awful 
crime. 

In  the  terrible  contest  waged,  the  government  mean- 
time is  girding  itself  up  in  decision,  and  wrestling  like 
a  giant  with  every  sort  of  foe  ;  with  conspiracies, 
treacheries,  factions  secret,  agitations  public,  midnight 
arsons,  foemen  in  the  bush,  armies  in  the  field.  The 
grapple  of  law  is  upon  us,  and  we  see  that  government, 
after  all,  is  somewhat  of  a  reality  even  with  us.  We 
thought  we  could  do  as  we  pleased,  and  were  all  sov- 
ereigns. We  saw  velvet  gloves  on  all  magistracy. 
Poor  Mr.  Buchanan  did  not  know  any  thing  he  could 
do  to  coerce  a  state  I    We  wake  up  now  in  the  disco v- 


314  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

ery  that  our  government  has,  after  all,  some  thunder 
in  it.  That  thunder  too,  is  going  to  roll  its  reverbera- 
tions down  through  all  our  future  history,  and  what 
we  now  feel  is  going  to  be  felt,  a  hundred  fold  more 
deeply,  long  ages  hence,  that  we  have  the  strongest, 
firmest  government  in  the  world. 

Again,  it  is  a  vast  and  mighty  schooling  of  authority 
that  we  have  in  our  armies.  Nothing  goes  by  consent, 
or  trust,  or  individual  sovereignty  here.  The  power 
is  not  delegated  here  and  liable  to  be  recalled. 
Authority  here  lifts  every  foot  by  the  drum-beat ;  de- 
fies all  weather,  and  water,  and  mud,  and  swamp ; 
forbids  even  hunger  and  sleep ;  and  squaring  the 
massed  legions,  hurls  them  in  the  face  of  gunpowder 
and  over  the  flaming  edges  of  defence.  This  it  was, 
this  military  drill,  so  exact  and  sharp  and  systematic, 
that  made  the  Romans,  always  at  war,  the  great  law 
nation  of  the  earth.  This  is  the  kind  of  lesson  we  are 
taking  by  the  million  now,  and  the  result  will  be  a 
great  moral  intoning  of  our  allegiance,  such  as  we 
could  never  have  had  from  any  other  discipline.  Why, 
that  single  flag  of  ours  means  even  more  to  us  now 
than  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  did  four 
years  ago.  And  the  man  who  should  set  himself  to 
get  one  stripe  or  star  out  of  it  would  fare  as  Mr.  Cal- 
houn did  not,  in  that  life-long  public  advocacy  by  which 
he  dismembered  the  Union  itself. 

Slavery  again,  we  are  dealing  death  blows  upon  that. 
I  say  not  how  it  shall  go,  but  go  it  must ;  nay,  it  is 
already  broken  to  the  fall,  if  we  touch  it  by  no  civil 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  315 

action  whatever.  No  human  power  under  heaven 
can  put  it  on  its  feet  again  and  make  it  stand.  What 
too,  are  we  all  beginning  to  say,  but  to  add  our  hearty 
Amen  to  its  final  departure?  There  was  never  a 
funeral  where  the  mourners  were  so  many  and  so 
happy.  We  breathe  more  freely,  as  soon  as  we  begin 
to  think  that  human  slavery  is  gone.  We  are  clear 
thus  of  that  miserable  hypocrisy  to  our  own  first  prin- 
ciples, that  has  so  long  shamed  our  feeling  and  made 
our  very  government  seem  hollow.  We  touch  bottom 
now  in  moral  ideas,  and  do  not  skim  the  surface  any 
longer  in  lying  platitudes  that  we  do  not  ourselves 
respect.  The  demoralizations  are  all  stopped,  and  we 
feel  it  in  us  to  be  true  for  liberty  and  right,  true  for 
the  law,  and  the  good,  great  government  our  God  has 
given  us. 

Meantime,  what  are  we  doing  so  constantly,  and  in  so 
many  ways,  to  invoke  the  sanctions  of  God  and  relig- 
ion ?  We  are  not  wanting,  any  of  us,  to  get  our  affairs 
away  from  God  as  we  used  to  be.  We  associate  God 
and  religion  with  all  that  we  are  fighting  for,  and  we 
are  not  satisfied  with  any  mere  human  atheistic  way 
of  speaking  as  to  means,  or  measures,  or  battles,  or 
victories,  or  great  deeds  to  win  them.  Our  cause,  we 
love  to  think,  is  especially  God's,  and  so  we  are  con- 
necting all  most  sacred  impressions  with  our  govern- 
ment itself,  weaving  in  a  woof  of  holy  feeling  among 
all  the  fibres  of  our  constitutional  polity  and  govern- 
ment. We  think  much  of  the  righteous  men  who 
have  gone  before  us,  and  of  their  prayers  descending 


316  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT 

upon  US,  and  the  sacred  charges  they  have  committed 
to  us.  There  is  an  immense  praying  too  by  day  and 
by  night  in  all  parts  of  the  country  ;  wives,  mothers, 
children,  fathers,  brothers,  praying  for  the  dear  ones 
they  have  sent  to  the  field,  for  the  commanders,  for 
the  cause  ;  soldiers  fighting  and  praying  together,  and 
many  of  them  learning  even  in  the  field  to  pray  and 
catch  heroic  fire  from  God.  Oh !  it  is  religion,  it  is 
God !  Every  drum-beat  is  a  hymn,  the  cannon  thun- 
der God,  the  electric  silence,  darting  victory  along  the 
wires,  is  the  inaudible  greeting  of  God's  favoring 
word  and  purpose. 

And,  lest  we  should  forget  the  religious  mood  of 
the  time,  what  forbids  that,  if  we  go  into  the  revision 
of  the  Constitution  advocated  .  by  many,  we  take  just 
pains  to  record  our  thanksgiving  in  it,  by  inserting 
in  the  preamble  some  fit  recognition  of  God  ?  Not 
that  we  are  to  think  it  a  matter^  of  consequence  to 
compliment  God  by  inserting  there  his  name  ;  not 
that  we  are  to  think  of  inscribing  there  some  evan- 
gelic article  of  doctrine  ;  it  must  be  enough, — and  so 
much  ought  to  be  done  as  a  matter  of  philosophic 
conviction, — ^to  cut  off  all  our  noxious  theories  of 
government  by  man,  and  make  it  the  recorded  senti- 
ment of  the  nation  that  all  true  authority  in  law  is 
of  a  moral  nature,  and  stands  in  allegiance  to  God. 

How  certainly,  again,  last  of  all,  do  we  consecrate 
or  hallow  any  thing  that  we  make  sacrifices  for !  And 
what  people  of  the  world  ever  made  such  sacrifices  of 
labor,  and  money,  and  life,  as  we  have  made  for  the 


BY    DIVINE    RIGHT.  317 

integrity  of  our  institutions  ?  How  many  of  our 
choicest,  noblest  youth,  have  yielded  up  their  lives  in 
the  field  ?  How  many  commanders,  who  were  taking 
their  place  with  the  world's  great  heroes,  have  fallen 
to  be  mourned  by  a  sorrowing  country  ?  Blood,  blood, 
rivers  of  blood,  have  bathed  our  hundred  battle-fields 
and  sprinkled  the  horns  of  our  altars !  Without  this 
shedding  of  blood,  how  could  the  violated  order  be 
sanctified  ?  And  to  see  the  maimed  bodies,  and  the 
disfigured,  once  noble  forms,  and  go  into  the  desolate 
homes,  and  listen  to  the  plaint  of  the  mourning  chil- 
dren,— Oh !  it  is  a  sacrifice  how  great  that  we  are 
making !  This  is  the  price  we  are  willing  to  pay  for 
our  country  and  its  laws. 

And  what  shall  be  the  result  ?  One  only  result  can 
there  be.  Nothing  can  be  so  evident  as  that  we  are 
now  in  a  way  to  have  our  free  institutions  crowned 
and  consummated.  A  great  problem  it  was  to  con- 
nect authority  with  so  great  freedom.  The  free 
maxims  we  began  with  and  took  with  no  qualification 
were  continually  demoralizing  our  conceptions.  The 
government  had  but  a  feeble  connection  with  moral 
ideas.  Now  it  is  to  be  the  ordinance  of  God,  and 
nothing  is  to  have  a  finer  sound  of  truth  for  the  ages 
to  come,  I  trust,  than  that  famous  opening  of  the  13th 
chapter  of  the  epistle  to  the  Romans :  "  Let  every 
soul  be  subject  unto  the  higher  powers ;  for  there  is 
no  power  but  of  God."  And  when  we  have  come  to 
this,  there  is  no  government  on  earth  that  compares 
for  strength  with  ours.     Nay  it  has  about  as  nearly 


318  POPULAR    GOVERNMENT. 

proved  itself  already  in  that  figure  as  it  could  be  de- 
sired to  do.  We  did  not  know  how  strong  it  was 
before.  Nobody  had  any  conception  of  the  immense 
strain  it  could  bear.  How  bright  is  the  future  now 
of  such  a  government  and  nation !  Hallowed  by  so 
many  battle-fields,  and  these  by  the  tribute  of  so 
many  histories,  and  sung  by  so  many  songs  of  the 
great  poets  of  the  future,  how  dear,  and  sacred,  and 
glorious  will  it  be  !  And  God  be  thanked  it  was  our 
privilege  to  live  in  this  great  day  of  crisis,  this  always- 
to-be-called  heroic  age  of  the  republic ! 

Let  no  one  imagine  that  here  we  shall  have  reached 
the  goal  of  our  progress.  Now  that  government  has 
ceased  to  be  itself  a  demoralizer,  as  it  has  hitherto 
been,  we  may  look  even  for  a  new-begun  growth  in  the 
moral  and  religious  habit  of  the  nation.  What  many 
have  been  fearing,  with  so  great  and  even  rational 
dread,  a  final  collapse  in  public  vice  and  anarchy,  will 
be  a  destroying  angel  passed  by.  There  will,  instead, 
be  a  great  and  sublime  progress  in  character  begun. 
There  will  be  less  and  less  need  of  government, 
because  the  moral  right  of  what  we  have  is  felt.  And 
as  what  we  do  as  right  is  always  free,  we  shall  grow 
more  free  as  the  centuries  pass,  till  perhaps,  even  gov- 
ernment itself  may  lapse  in  the  freedom  of  a  right- 
eousness consummated  in  God. 


X. 

OUE  OBLIGATIONS  TO  THE  DEAD  * 

Brethren  of  the  Alumni  : — 

To  pay  fit  honors  to  our  dead  is  one  of  the  frater- 
nal and  customarj  offices  of  these  anniversaries ; 
never  so  nearly  an  office  of  high  public  duty  as  now, 
when  we  find  the  roll  of  our  membership  starred  with 
so  many  names  made  sacred  by  the  giving  up  of  life 
for  the  Republic.  We  knew  them  here  in  terms  of 
cherished  intimacy ;  some  of  them  so  lately  that  we 
scarcely  seem  to  have  been  parted  from  them ;  others 
of  them  we  have  met  here  many  times,  returning  to 
renew,  with  us,  their  tender  and  pleasant  recollections 
of  the  past ;  but  we  meet  them  here  no  more  :  they 
are  gone  to  make  up  the  hecatomb  offered  for  their 
and  our  great  nation's  life.  Hence  it  has  been 
specially  desired  on  this  occasion,  that  we  honor  their 
heroic  sacrifice  by  some  fit  remembrance.  Had  the 
call  of  your  committee  been  different,  I  should  cer- 
tainly not  have  responded. 

*  An  oration  given  a%  the  Commemorative  Celebration  held  in  j 
New  Haven,   on  Wednesday  of  Commencement  Week,  July  2G, 
1865,  in  honor  of  the  Alumni  of  Yale  College,  who  fell  in  the 
War  of  the  Rebellion. 

(319) 


320  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

And  yet,  over-willing  as  1  have  been  to  assume  an 
office  so  entirely  grateful,  it  is  a  matter  none  the  less 
difficult  to  settle  on  the  best  and  most  proper  way  of 
doing  the  honors  intended.  I  think  you  will  agree 
with  me,  that  it  cannot  be  satisfactorily  done  by  pre- 
paring a  string  of  obituary  notices  of  our  dead ;  that 
would  be  more  appropriate  to  some  published  docu- 
ment, and  no  wise  appropriate  to  a  public  discourse. 
Besides,  to  withdraw  them  from  the  vaster  roll  of  the 
dead,  in  which  it  was  their  honor  to  die,  and  set  them 
in  a  circle  of  mere  literary  clanship,  bounding  our  testi- 
mony of  homage  by  the  accident  of  their  matriculation 
here  with  us,  would  be  rather  to  claim  our  honors  in 
them,  than  to  pay  them  honors  due  to  themselves. 
We  should  seem  not  even  to  appreciate  the  grand  pub- 
lic motive  to  which  they  gave  up  their  life.  They 
honored  us  in  dying  for  tlieir  country,  and  we  fitly 
honor  them,  when  we  class  them  with  the  glorious 
brotherhood  in  which  they  fell.  Reserving  it  therefore 
as  my  privilege,  to  make  such  reference  specially  to 
them  as  befits  the  occasion,  I  propose  a  more  general 
subject  in  which  due  honors  may  be  paid  to  all,  viz., 
The  obligations  ive  otve  to  the  dead^ — all  the  dead  who 
have  fallen  in  this  gigantic  and  fearfully  bloody  war. 

There  are  various  ways  in  which  a  people,  delivered 
by  great  struggles  of  war,  may  endeavor  to  pay  their 
testimony  of  honor  to  the  men  who,  have  fallen.  They 
may  do  it  by  chanting  requiems  for  the  repose 
of  their  souls ;  which,  though  it  may  not  have  any 
great  effect  in  that  precise  way,  is  at  least  an  act  of 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  S21 

implied  homage  and  gratitude.  The  same  thing  is 
attempted  more  frequently  by  covering  the  dead  bene- 
factors and  heroes  with  tributes  of  eulogy ;  only  here 
it  is  a  disappointment,  that  none  but  a  few  leaders 
are  commemorated,  while  the  undistinguished  multi- 
tude, who  jeoparded  their  lives  most  freely,  are  passed 
by  and  forgot.  The  best  thing  therefore  to  be  done, 
worthiest  both  of  the  dead  and  the  living,  is,  it  seems 
to  me,  that  which  1  now  propose, — to  recount  our 
obligations  to  the  dead  in  general ;  what  they  have 
done  for  us,  what  they  have  earned  at  our  hands,  and 
what  they  have  put  it  on  us  to  do  for  the  dear  common 
country  to  which  they  sold  their  life. 

First  of  all  then,  we  are  to  see  that  we  give  them 
their  due  share  of  the  victory  and  the  honors  of  vic- 
tory. For  it  is  one  of  our  natural  infirmities, 
against  which  we  need  to  be  carefully  and  even  jeal- 
ously guarded,  that  we  fall  so  easily  into  the  impres- 
sion which  puts  them  in  the  class  of  defeat  and 
failure.  Are  they  not  dead  ?  And  who  shall  count 
the  dead  as  being  in  the  roll  of  victory  ?  But  the 
living  return  to  greet  us  and  be  with  us,  and  we  listen 
eagerly  to  the  story  of  the  scenes  in  which  they 
bore  their  part.  We  enjoy  their  exultations  and  exult 
with  them.  Their  great  leaders  also  return,  to  be 
crowded  by  our  ovations,  and  deafened  by  our  ap- 
plauses. These,  these,  we  too  readily  say,  are  the 
victors,  considering  no  more  the  dead  but  with  a  cer- 
tain feeling  close  akin  to  pity.   If,  sometime,  the  story 


322  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

of  their  fall  is  told  us,  the  spot  described,  far  in  front 
or  on  the  rampart's  edge,  where  they  left  their  bodies 
with  the  fatal  gashes  at  which  their  souls  went  out,  we 
listen  with  sympathy  and  sad  respect,  but  we  do  not 
find  how  to  count  them  in  the  lists  of  victory,  and 
scarcely  to  include  them  in  the  general  victory  of  the 
cause.  All  our  associations  run  this  way,  and  before 
we  know  it  we  have  them  down,  most  likely,  on  the 
losing  side  of  the  struggle.  They  belong,  we  fancy, 
to  the  waste  of  victory, — sad  waste  indeed !  but  not 
in  any  sense  a  part  of  victory  itself.  No,  no,  ye  liv- 
ing! It  is  the  ammunition  spent. that  gains  the  bat- 
tle, not  the  ammunition  brought  off  from  the  field. 
These  dead  are  the  spent  ammunition  of  the  war,  and 
theirs  above  all  is  the  victory.  Upon  what  indeed 
turned  the  question  of  the  war  itself,  but  on  the  dead 
that  could  be  furnished ;  or  what  is  no  wise  different, 
the  life  that  could  be  contributed  for  that  kind  of 
expenditure  ?  These  grim  heroes  therefore,  dead  and 
dumb,  that  have  strewed  so  many  fields  with  their 
bodies, — these  are  the  price  and  purchase-money  of 
our  triumph.  A  great  many  of  us  were  ready  to  live, 
but  these  offered  themselves,  in  a  sense,  to  die,  and  by 
their  cost  the  victory  is  won. 

Nay,  it  is  not  quite  enough,  if  we  will  know  exactly 
who  is  entitled  to  a  part  in  these  honors,  that  we  only 
remember  these  dead  of  the  war.  Buried  generations ' 
back  of  them  were  also  present  in  it,  almost  as  truly 
as  they.  Thus,  if  we  take  the  two  most  honored 
leaders,  Grant  and  Sherman,  who,  besides  the  general 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.         323 

victory  they  have  gained  for  the  cause,  have  won  their 
sublime  distinction  as  the  greatest  living  commanders 
of  the  world,  it  will  be  impossible  to  think  of  them 
as  having  made  or  begotten  their  own  lofty  endow- 
ments. All  great  heroic  men  have  seeds  and  roots, 
far  back  it  may  be,  out  of  which  they  spring,  and 
apart  from  which  they  could  not  spring  at  all ;  a  sub- 
lime fatherhood  and  motherhood,  in  whose  blood  and 
life,  however  undistinguished,  victory  was  long  ago 
distilling  for  the  great  day  to  come  of  their  people 
and  nation.  They  knew  it  not ;  they  sleep  in  graves, 
it  may  be,  now  forgot.  But  their  huge-grown,  manful 
temperament,  the  fights  they  waged  and  won  in  life's 
private  battle,  the  lofty  prayer-impulse  which  made 
inspirations  their  element,  their  brave  self-retaining 
patience,  and  the  orderly  vigor  of  their  household  com- 
mand were  breeding  in  and  in,  to  be  issued  finall}^  in 
a  hero  sonship,  and  by  that  fight  themselves  out  into 
the  grandest  victory  for  right  and  law  the  future 
ages  shall  know.  So  that  if  we  ask  who  are  the  dead 
that  are  to  be  counted  in  our  victory,  we  must  pierce 
the  sod  of  Wethersfield  and  Stratford,  of  Woodbury 
and  Norwalk,  and  find  where  the  Honorable  Sherman, 
the  Deacon  Sherman,  the  Judge  Sherman,  and  all  the 
line  of  the  Shermans  and  their  victor  wives  and 
mothers  lie ;  and  then,  if  we  can  guess  what  they 
were  and  how  they  lived,  we  shall  know  who  fought 
the  great  campaigns  at  Atlanta,  Savannah  and  Raleigh. 
So  again,  if  we  begin  at  the  good  Deacon  Grant  in 
Mr.  Warham's  church  at  Windsor ;  descending  to  the 


324  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

historic  Matthew  Grant  of  Tolland,  fellow-scout  with 
Putnam  and  captain  of  a  French  war  company  ;  then 
to  the  now  living  Joel  E-oot  Grant,  who  removed  to 
Pennsylvania,  afterwards  also  to  Ohio,  afterwards 
finally,  I  believe,  to  Illinois,  whose  wanderings  appear 
to  be  commemorated  in  the  classic  name  of  Ulysses ; 
we  shall  see  by  what  tough  flanking  processes  of  life 
and  family  the  great  Lieutenant-General  was  prepar- 
ing, who  should  turn  the  front  of  Yicksburg,  and 
march  by  Lee  and  Richmond,  and  cut  off,  by  the  rear, 
even  the  Great  Rebellion  itself.  0,  if  we  could  see  it, 
how  long  and  grandly  were  the  victories  of  these  great 
souls  preparing  !  The  chief  thing  was  the  making  of 
the  souls  themselves,  and  when  that  was  done  the 
successes  came  of  course. 

And  from  these  two  examples  you  may  see  by  what 
lines  of  private  worth,  and  public  virtue,  and  more 
than  noble  blood,  the  stock  of  our  great  patriotic 
armies  has  been  furnished.  For  how  grand  a  pitch  of 
devotion  has  been  often  shown  by  the  private  soldiers 
of  these  armies  !  There  was  never  embodied,  in  all 
the  armies  of  the  world,  a  public  inspiration  so  re- 
markable. Really  the  grandest  heroes  are  these,  who 
have  neither  had,  nor  wanted,  any  motive  but  the  sal- 
vation of  the  Republic.  And  do  you  think  there  was 
nothing  back  of  them  to  make  them  what  they  were  ? 
What  but  an  immense  outgrowth  were  they  of  whole 
ages  of  worth,  intelligence,  and  public  devotion  ?  And 
for  what  more  honorable  distinction  should  we  here 
and  always  pay  our  thanks  to  God  ?     0,  it  is  these 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  325 

generations  of  buried  worth  that  have  been  fighting  in 
our  battles,  and  if  we  will  pay  our  obligations  to  the 
dead,  it  is  this  nameless  fatherhood  and  motherhood, 
before  whose  memory  we  shall  bare  our  head  in  the 
deepest  homage  and  tenderest  reverence. 

Still,  it  is  not  my  intention  to  occupy  you  with  the 
part  fulfilled  by  these  remoter  generations  of  the  past, 
but  with  the  more  general  remembrance  of  such  as 
have  fallen  in  the  war  itself.  I  only  refer  you  to 
these,  to  show  you  how  very  trivial  and  weak  a  thing 
it  is,  if  we  speak  of  our  victories,  to  imagine  that  only 
such  as  come  out  of  the  war  alive  are  entitled  to  credit 
and  reverence  on  account  of  them. 

But  I  pass  to  a  point  where  the  dead  obtain  a  right 
of  honor  that  is  more  distinctive,  and  belongs  not  to 
the  living  at  all ;  or  if  in  certain  things  partly  to  the 
living,  yet  only  to  them  in  some  less  sacred  and  prom- 
inent way.  I  speak  here  of  the  fact  that,  according  to 
the  true  economy  of  the  world,  so  many  of  its  grand- 
est and  most  noble  benefits  have  and  are  to  have  a 
tragic  origin,  and  to  come  as  outgrowths  only  of  blood. 
Whether  it  be  that  sin  is  in  the  world,  and  the  whole 
creation  groaneth  in  the  necessary  throes  of  its  dem- 
onized  life,  we  need  not  stay  to  inquire ;  for  sin  would 
be  in  the  world  and  the  demonizing  spell  would  be 
upon  it.  Such  was,  and  was  to  be,  and  is,  the  economy 
of  it.  Common  life,  the  world's  great  life,  is  in  the 
large  way  tragic.  As  the  mild  benignity  and  peaceful 
reign   of   Christ  begins  at   the   principle:   "without 


826  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

shedding  of  blood,  there  is  no  remission,"  so,  without 
shedding  of  blood,  there  is  almost  nothing  great  in  the 
world,  or  to  be  expected  for  it.     For  the  life  is  in  tlie 
blood, — all  life ;  and  it  is  put  flowing  within,  partly  for 
the  serving  of  a  nobler  use  in  flowing  out  on  fit  occa- 
sion, to  quicken  and  consecrate  whatever  it  touches. 
God  could  not  plan  a  Peace-Society  world,  to  live  in 
the  sweet  amenities,  and  grow  great  and  happy  by 
simply  thriving  and  feeding.     There  must  be  bleeding 
also.     Sentiments  must  be  born  that  are  children  of 
thunder ;  there  must  be  heroes  and  heroic  nationali- 
ties, and  martyr  testimonies,  else  there  will  be  only 
mediocrities,  insipidities,  common-place  men,  and  com- 
mon-place writings, — a  sordid  and  mean  peace,  liber- 
ties without  a  pulse,  and  epics  that  are  only  eclogues. 
And  here  it  is  that  the  dead  of  our  war  have  done 
for  us  a  work  so  precious,  which  is  all  their  own, — > 
they  have  bled  for  us ;  and  by  this  simple  sacrifice  of 
blood  they  have  opened  for  us  a  new  great  chapter  of 
life.     We  were  living  before  in  trade  and  commerce, 
bragging  of  our  new  cities  and  our  census  reports,  and 
our  liberties  that  were  also  consciously  mocked  by  our 
hypocrisies ;  having   only   the   possibilities   of   great 
inspirations  and  not  the  fact,  materialized  more  and 
more  evidently  in  our  habits  and  sentiments,  strong 
principally  in  our  discords  and  the  impetuosity  of  our- 
projects  for  money.     But  the  blood  of  our  dead  has 
touched  om*   souls  with   thoughts  more  serious  and 
deeper,  and  begotten,  as  I  trust,  somewhat  of  that 
high-bred  inspiration  which  is  itself  the  possibility  of 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  327 

genius,  and  of  a  true  public  greatness.  Saying  noth- 
ing then  for  the  present  of  our  victors  and  victories, 
let  us  see  what  we  have  gotten  by  the  blood  of  our 
slain. 

And  first  of  all,  in  this  blood  our  unity  is  cemented 
and  forever  sanctified.  Something  was  gained  for  us 
here,  at  the  beginning,  by  our  sacrifices  in  the  fields 
of  our  Revolution, — something,  but  not  all.  Had  it 
not  been  for  this  common  bleeding  of  the  States  in 
their  common  cause,  it  is  doubtful  whether  our  Con- 
stitution could  ever  have  been  carried.  The  discords 
of  the  Convention  were  imminent,  as  we  know,  and 
were  only  surmounted  by  compromises  that  left  them 
still  existing.  They  were  simply  kenneled  under  the 
Constitution  and  not  reconciled,  as  began  to  be  evident 
shortly  in  the  doctrines  of  state  sovereignty,  and 
state  nullification,  here  and  there  asserted.  We  had 
not  bled  enough,  as  yet,  to  merge  our  colonial  dis- 
tinctions and  make  us  a  proper  nation.  Our  battles 
had  not  been  upon  a  scale  to  thoroughly  mass  our 
feeling,  or  gulf  us  in  a  common  cause  and  life. 
Against  the  state-rights  doctrines,  the  logic  of  our 
Constitution  was  decisive,  and  they  were  refuted  a 
thousand  times  over.  But  such  things  do  not  go  by 
argument.  No  argument  transmutes  a  discord,  or 
composes  a  unity  where  there  was  none.  The  matter 
wanted  here  was  blood,  not  logic,  and  this  we  now 
have  on  a  scale  large  enough  to  meet  our  necessity. 
True  it  is  blood  on  one  side,  and  blood  on  the  other, — 


828  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

all  the  better  for  that ;  for  bad  bleeding  kills,  and 
righteous  bleeding  sanctifies  and  quickens.  The 
state-rights  doctrine  is  now  fairly  bled  away,  and  the 
unity  died  for,  in  a  way  of  such  prodigious  devotion, 
is  forever  sealed  and  glorified. 

Nor  let  any  one  be  concerned  for  the  sectional  rela- 
tions of  defeat  and  victory.  For  there  has  all  the 
while  been  a  grand,  suppressed  sentiment  of  country 
in  the  general  field  of  the  rebellion,  which  is  bursting 
up  already  into  sovereignty  out  of  the  soil  itself. 
There  is  even  a  chance  that  this  sentiment  may  blaze 
into  a  passion  hot  enough  to  utterly  burn  up  whatever 
fire  itself  can  master.  At  all  events  it  will  put  under 
the  ban,  from  this  time  forth,  all  such  instigators  of 
treason  as  could  turn  their  peaceful  States  into  hells 
of  desolation,  and  force  even  patriotic  citizens  to  fight 
against  the  homage  they  bore  their  country.  However 
this  may  be,  the  seeds  of  a  true  public  life  are  in  the 
soil,  waiting  to  grow  apace.  It  will  be  as  when  the 
flood  of  Noah  receded.  For  the  righteous  man  per- 
chance began  to  bethink  himself  shortly,  and  to  be 
troubled,  that  he  took  no  seeds  into  the  ark ;  but  no 
sooner  were  the  waters  down,  than  the  oaks  and 
palms  and  all  great  trees  sprung  into  life,  under  the 
dead  old  trunks  of  the  forest,  and  the  green  world  re- 
appeared even  greener  than  before  ;  only  the  sections 
had  all  received  new  seeds,  by  a  floating  exchange, 
and  put  them  forthwith  into  growth  together  with 
their  own.  So  the  unity  now  to  be  developed,  after 
this  war-deluge  is  over,  is  even  like  to  be  more  cordial 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.         329 

than  it  ever  could  have  been.  It  will  be  no  more 
thought  of  as  a  mere  human  compact,  or  composition, 
always  to  be  debated  by  the  letter,  but  it  will  be  that 
bond  of  common  life  which  God  has  touched  with 
blood ;  a  sacredly  heroic.  Providentially  tragic  unity, 
where  God's  cherubim  stand  guard  over  grudges  and 
hates  and  remembered  jealousies,  and  the  sense  of 
nationality  becomes  even  a  kind  of  religion.  How 
many  would  have  said  that  the  Saxon  Heptarchy, 
tormented  by  so  many  intrigues  and  feuds  of  war, 
could  never  be  a  nation  !  But  their  formal  combina- 
tion under  Egbert,  followed  by  their  wars  against  the 
Danes  under  Alfred,  set  them  in  a  solid,  sanctified 
unity,  and  made  them,  as  a  people,  one  true  England, 
instead  of  the  seven  Englands  that  were  ;  which  seven 
were  never  again  to  be  more  than  historically  remem- 
bered. And  so,  bleeding  on  together  from  that  time 
to  this  in  all  sorts  of  wars ;  wars  civil  and  wars 
abroad,  drenching  the  land  and  coloring  the  sea  with 
their  blood  ;  gaining  all  sorts  of  victories  and  suffer- 
ing all  kinds  of  defeats  ;  their  parties  and  intestine 
strifes  are  no  more  able  now  to  so  much  as  raise  a 
thought  that  is  not  in  allegiance  to  their  country.  In 
like  manner, — let  no  one  doubt  of  it, — these  United 
States,  having  dissolved  the  intractable  matter  of  so 
many  infallible  theories  and  bones  of  contention  in 
the  dreadful  menstruum  of  their  blood,  are  to  settle 
into  fixed  unity,  and  finally  into  a  nearly  homogene- 
ous life. 


830  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

Passing  to  another  point  of  view,  we  owe  it  to  our 
dead  in  this  terrible  war,  that  they  have  given  us  the 
possibility  of  a  great  consciousness  and  great  public 
sentiments.  There  must  needs  be  something  lofty  in 
a  people's  action,  and  above  all  something  heroic  in 
their  sacrifices  for  a  cause,  to  sustain  a  great  senti- 
ment in  them.  They  will  try,  in  the  smooth  days  of 
peace  and  golden  thriftiness  and  wide-spreading 
growth,  to  have  it,  and  perhaps  will  think  they  really 
have  it,  but  they  will  only  have  semblances  and  coun- 
terfeits ;  patriotic  professions  that  are  showy  and 
thin,  swells  and  protestations  that  are  only  oratorical 
and  have  no  true  fire.  All  the  worse  if  they  have 
interests  and  institutions  that  are  all  the  while  mock- 
ing their  principles ;  breeding  factions  that  can  be 
quieted  only  by  connivances  and  compromises  and 
political  bargains,  that  sell  out  their  muniments  of 
right  and  nationality.  Then  you  shall  see  all  high 
devotion  going  down  as  by  a  law,  till  nothing  is  left 
but  the  dastard  picture  of  a  spent  magistracy  that, 
when  every  thing  is  falling  into  wreck,  can  only  whim- 
per that  it  sees  not  any  thing  it  can  do  !  Great  sen- 
timents go  when  they  are  not  dismissed,  and  will  not 
come  when  they  are  sent  for.  We  cannot  keep  them 
by  much  talk,  nor  have  them  because  we  have  heard 
of  them  and  seen  them  in  a  classic  halo.  A  lofty 
public  consciousness  arises  only  when  things  are 
loftily  and  nobly  done.  It  is  only  when  we  are  rallied 
by  a  cause,  in  that  cause  receive  a  great  inspiration, 
in  that  inspiration  give  our  bodies  to  the  death,  that 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  331 

at  last,  out  of  many  such  heroes  dead,  comes  the  possi- 
bility of  great  thoughts,  fired  by  sacrifice,  and  a  true 
public  magnanimity. 

In  this  view,  we  are  not  the  same  people  that  we 
were,  and  never  can  be  again.  Our  young  scholars, 
that  before  could  only  find  the  forms  of  great  feeling 
in  their  classic  studies,  now  catch  the  fire  of  it  un- 
sought. Emulous  before  of  saying  fine  things  for 
their  country,  they  now  choke  for  the  impossibilty  of 
saying  what  they  truly  feel.  The  pitch  of  their  life 
is  raised.  The  tragic  blood  of  the  war  is  a  kind  of 
new  capacity  for  them.  They  perceive  what  it  is  to 
have  a  country  and  a  public  devotion.  Great  aims 
are  close  at  hand,  and  in  such  aims  a  finer  type  of 
manners.  And  what  shall  follow,  but  that,  in  their 
more  invigorated,  nobler  life,  they  are  seen  hereafter 
to  be  manlier  in  thought  and  scholarship,  and  closer 
to  genius  in  action. 

I  must  also  speak  of  the  new  great  history  sancti- 
fied by  this  war,  and  the  blood  of  its  fearfully  bloody 
sacrifices.  So  much  worth  and  character  were  never 
sacrificed  in  a  human  war  before.  And  by  this 
mournful  offering,  we  have  bought  a  really  stupend- 
ous chapter  of  history.  We-  had  a  little  very  beauti- 
ful history  before,  which  we  were  beginning  to  cherish 
and  fondly  cultivate.  But  we  had  not  enough  of  it 
to  beget  a  full  historic  consciousness.  As  was  just 
now  intimated  in  a  different  way,  no  people  ever 
become   vigorously  conscious,  till  they   mightily  do, 


332  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

and  heroically  suffer.  The  historic  sense  is  close 
akin  to  tragedy.  We  say  it  accusingly  often, — and 
foolishly, — that  history  cannot  live  on  peace,  but  must 
feed  itself  on  blood.  The  reason  is  that,  without  the 
blood,  there  is  really  nothing  great  enough  in  motive 
and  action,  taking  the  world  as  it  is,  to  create  a  great 
people  or  story.  If  a  gospel  can  be  executed  only  in 
blood,  if  there  is  no  power  of  salvation  strong  enough 
to  carry  the  world's  feeling  which  is  not  gained  by 
dying  for  it,  how  shall  a  selfish  race  get  far  enough 
above  itself,  to  be  kindled  by  the  story  of  its  action 
in  the  dull  routine  of  its  common  arts  of  peace  ? 
Doubtless  it  should  be  otherwise,  even  as  goodness 
should  be  universal ;  but  so  it  never  has  been,  and 
upon  the  present  footing  of  evil  never  can  be.  The 
great  cause  must  be  great  as  in  the  clashing  of  evil ; 
and  heroic  inspirations,  and  the  bleeding  of  heroic 
worth  must  be  the  zest  of  the  story.  Nations  can 
sufficiently  live  only  as  they  find  how  to  energetically 
die.  In  this  view,  some  of  us  have  felt,  for  a  long 
time,  the  want  of  a  more  historic  life,  to  make  us  a 
truly  great  people.  This  want  is  now  supplied ;  for 
now,  at  last,  we  may  be  said  to  have  gotten  a  history. 
The  story  of  this  four  years'  war  is  the  grandest  chap- 
ter, I  think,  of  heroic  fact,  and  tragic  devotion,  and 
spontaneous  public  sacrifice,  that  has  ever  been  made 
in  our  world.  The  great  epic  story  of  Troy  is  but  a 
song  in  comparison.  There  was  never  a  better,  and 
never  so  great  a  cause ;  order  against  faction,  law 
against  conspiracy,  liberty  and  right  against  the  mad- 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  333 

ness  and  defiant  wrong  of  slavery,  the  unity  and  sal- 
vation of  the  greatest  future  nationality  and  freest 
government  of  the  world,  a  perpetual  state  of  war  to 
be  averted,  and  the  preservation  for  mankind  of  an 
example  of  popular  government  and  free  society  that 
is  a  token  of  promise  for  true  manhood,  and  an  omen 
of  death  to  old  abuse  and  prescriptive  wrong  the 
world  over  ;  this  has  been  our  cause,  and  it  is  some- 
thing to  say  that  we  have  borne  ourselves  worthily  in 
it.  Our  noblest  and  best  sons  have  given  their  life  to 
it.  We  have  dotted  whole  regions  with  battle-fields. 
We  have  stained  how  many  rivers,  and  bays,  and  how 
many  hundred  leagues  of  railroad,  with  our  blood  1 
We  have  suffered  appalling  defeats ;  twice  at  Bull 
Run,  at  Wilson's  Creek,  in  the  great  campaign  of  the 
Peninsula,  at  Cedar  Mountain,  at  Fredericksburg,  at 
Chancellor sville,  at  Chickamauga,  and  upon  the  Red 
River,  leaving  our  acres  of  dead  on  all  these  fields 
and  many  others  less  conspicuous  ;  yet,  abating  no  jot 
of  courage  and  returning  with  resolve  unbroken,  we 
have  converted  these  defeats  into  only  more  impres- 
sive victories.  In  this  manner  too,  with  a  better  for- 
tune nobly  earned,  we  have  hallowed,  as  names  of 
glory  and  high  victory.  Pea  Ridge,  Donelson,  Shiloh, 
Hilton  Head,  New  Orleans,  Yicksburg,  Port  Hudson, 
Stone  River,  Lookout  Mountain,  Resaca,  Atlanta, 
Fort  Fisher,  Gettysburg,  Nashville,  Wilmington, 
Petersburg  and  Richmond,  Bentonville,  Mobile  Bay, 
and,  last  of  all,  the  forts  of  Mobile  city.  All  these 
and  a  hundred  others  are  now  become,  and  in  all 


834  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

future  time  are  to  be,  names  grandly  historic.  And 
to  have  them  is  to  be  how  great  a  gift  for  the  ages  to 
come !  By  how  many  of  the  future  children  of  the 
Republic  will  these  spots  be  yisited,  and  how  many 
will  return  from  their  pilgrimages  thither,  blest  in 
remembrances  of  the  dead,  to  whom  they  owe  their 
country ! 

Among  the  fallen  too  we  have  names  that  will  glow 
with  unfading  lustre  on  whatever  page  they  are  writ- 
ten ;  our  own  brave  Lyon,  baptizing  the  cause  in  the 
blood  of  his  early  death ;  our  Sedgwick,  never  found 
wanting  at  any  point  of  command,  equal  in  fact  to  the 
very  highest  command,  and  only  too  modest  to  receive 
it  when  offered  ;  the  grandly  gifted  young  McPherson, 
who  had  already  fought  himself  into  the  first  rank  of 
leadership,  and  was  generally  counted  the  peerless 
hope  and  prodigy  of  the  armies ;  Reynolds  also,  and 
Kearney,  and  Reno,  and  Birney ;  and  how  many  bril- 
liant stars,  or  even  constellations  of  stars,  in  the  lower 
degrees  of  command,  such  as  Rice,  and  Lowell,  and 
Vincent,  and  Shaw,  and  Stedman,  and  a  hundred 
others  in  like  honor,  for  the  heroic  merit  of  their 
leadership  and  death  !  And  yet,  when  I  drop  all 
particular  names,  dear  as  they  may  be,  counting  them 
only  the  smoke  and  not  the  fire,  letting  the  unknown 
trains  of  dead  heroes  pack  and  mass  and  ascend,  to 
shine,  as  by  host,  in  the  glorious  Milk}^  Way  of  their 
multitude, — men  that  left  their  business  and  all  the 
dearest  ties  of  home  and  family  to  fight  their  country's 
righteous  war,  and  fought  on  till  they  fell, — then  for 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  835 

the  first  time  do  I  seem  to  feel  the  tide-swing  of  a 
great  historic  consciousness.  God  forbid  that  any 
prudishness  of  modesty  should  here  detain  us.  Let 
us  fear  no  more  to  say  that  we  have  won  a  history 
and  the  right  to  be  a  consciously  historic  people. 
Henceforth  our  new  world  even  heads  the  old,  having 
in  this  single  chapter  risen  clean  above  it.  The  wars 
of  Cassar,  and  Frederic,  and  Napoleon,  were  grand 
enough  in  their  leadership,  but  there  is  no  grand  peo- 
ple or  popular  greatness  in  them,  consequently  no 
true  dignity.  In  this  war  of  ours  it  is  the  people, 
moving  by  their  own  decisive  motion,  in  the  sense  of 
their  own  great  cause.  For  this  cause  we  have  vol- 
unteered by  the  million,  and  in  three  thousand  millions 
of  money,  and  by  the  resolute  bleeding  of  our  men  and 
the  equally  resolute  bleeding  of  our  self-taxation,  we 
have  bought  and  sanctified  consentingly  all  these 
fields,  all  that  is  grand  in  this  thoroughly  principled 
history. 

Again,  it  is  not  a  new  age  of  history  only  that  we 
owe  to  the  bloody  sacrifices  of  this  war,  but  in  much 
the  same  manner  the  confidence  of  a  new  literary  age  ; 
a  benefit  that  we  are  specially  called,  in  such  a  place 
as  this,  and  on  such  an  occasion,  to  remember  and 
fitly  acknowledge.  Great  public  throes  are,  mentally 
speaking,  changes  of  base  for  some  new  thought-cam- 
paign in  a  people.  Hence  the  brilliant  new  literature 
of  the  age  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ;  then  of  another  golden 
era  under  Anne  ;  and  then  still  ao^ain,  as  in  the  arrival 


336  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

of  another  birtli-time,  after  the  Napoleonic  wars  of 
George  the  Fourth.  The  same  thing  has  been  noted, 
I  believe,  in  respect  to  the  wars  of  Greece  and  Ger- 
many. Only  it  is  in  such  wars  as  raise  the  public 
sense  and  majesty  of  a  people  that  the  result  is  seen 
to  follow.  For  it  is  the  high-souled  feeling  raised  that 
quickens  high-souled  thought,  and  puts  the  life  of 
genius  in  the  glow  of  new-born  liberty.  This  we  are 
now  to  expect,  for  the  special  reason  also  that  we  have 
here,  for  the  first  time,  conquered  a  position.  Thus 
it  will  be  seen  that  no  great  writer  becomes  himself, 
in  his  full  power,  till  he  has  gotten  the  sense  of  posi- 
tion. Much  more  true  is  this  of  a  people.  And  here 
has  been  our  weakness  until  now.  We  have  held  the 
place  of  cliency,  we  have  taken  our  models  and  laws 
of  criticism,  and  to  a  great  extent  our  opinions,  from 
the  English  motherhood  of  our  language  and  mind. 
Under  that  kind  of  pupilage  we  live  no  longer ;  we 
are  thoroughly  weaned  from  it,  and  become  a  people 
in  no  secondary  right.  Henceforth  we  are  not  going 
to  write  English,  but  American.  As  we  have  gotten 
our  position,  we  are  now  to  have  our  own  civilization, 
think  our  own  thoughts,  rhyme  in  our  own  measures, 
kindle  our  own  fires,  and  make  our  own  canons  of  crit- 
icism, even  as  we  settle  the  proprieties  of  punishment 
for  our  own  traitors.  We  are  not  henceforth  to  live  as 
by  cotton  and  corn  and  trade,  keeping  the  downward 
slope  of  thrifty  mediocrity.  Our  young  men  are  not 
going  out  of  college,  staled,  in  the  name  of  discipline, 
by  their  carefully  conned  lessons,  to  be  launched  on 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.          337 

the  voyage  of  life  as  ships  without  wind,  but  they  are 
to  have  great  sentiments,  and  mighty  impulsions,  and 
souls  alive  all  through  in  fires  of  high  devotion. 

We  have  gotten  also  now  the  historic  matter  of  a 
true  oratorio  inspiration,  and  the  great  orators  are 
coming  after.     In  the  place  of  politicians  we  are  going 
to  have,  at  least,  some  statesmen ;  for  we  have  gotten 
the  pitch  of  a  grand,  new,  Abrahamic  statesmanship, 
unsophisticated,  honest  and  real ;  no  cringing  syco- 
phancy, or  cunning  art  of  demagogy.     We  have  also 
facts,  adventures,  characters  enough  now  in  store,  to 
feed  five  hundred   years  of   fiction.     We  have  also 
plots,  and  lies,  and  honorable  perjuries,  false  heroics, 
barbaric  murders  and  assassinations,  conspiracies  of 
fire  and  poison, — enough  of  them,  and  wicked  enough, 
to  furnish  the  Satanic  side  of  tragedy  for  long  ages  to 
come;  coupled  also  with   such  grandeurs  of  public 
valor  and  principle,  such  beauty  of  heroic  sacrifice,  in 
womanhood  and  boyhood,  as  tragedy  has  scarcely  yet 
been  able  to  find.     As  to  poetry,  our  battle-fields  are 
henceforth  names  poetic,  and  our  very  soil  is  touched 
with  a  mighty  poetic  life.     In  the  rustle  of  our  winds, 
what  shall  the  waking  soul,  of  our  poets  think  of,  but 
of  brave  souls  riding  by  ?     In  our  thunders  they  may 
hear  the  shocks  of  charges,  and  the  red  of  the  sunset 
shall  take  a  tinge  in  their  feeling  from  the  summits 
where  our  heroes  fell.     A  new  sense  comes  upon  every 
thing,  and  the  higher  soul  of  mind,  quickened  by  new 
possibilities,  finds  inspirations  where  before  it  found 
only  rocks,  and  ploughlands,  and  much  timber  for  the 


338         OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

saw.  Are  there  no  great  singers  to  rise  in  this  new 
time  ?  Are  there  no  unwonted  fires  to  be  kindled  in 
imaginations  fanned  by  these  new  glows  of  devotion  ? 
We  seem,  as  it  were  in  a  day,  to  be  set  in  loftier 
ranges  of  thought,  by  this  huge  flood-tide  that  has 
lifted  our  nationality,  gifted  with  new  sentiments  and 
finer  possibilities,  commissioned  to  create,  and  write, 
and  sing,  and,  in  the  sense  of  a  more  poetic  feeling  at 
least,  to  be  all  poets. 

Considering  now  these  higher  possibilities  of  litera- 
turCj  who  shall  say  how  much  our  one  hundred  fallen 
brothers  have  done  for  us  in  taking  the  field  to  die  for 
their  country  ?  The  literary  talent  of  some  of  them 
was  in  the  highest  grade  of  promise,  yet  even  these 
may  have  done  more  for  us  by  their  death  than  they 
could  have  done  by  their  life.  As  the  scholarly  and 
piquant  Winthrop  became  an  author  of  renown  only 
after  his  death  on  the  field  of  Big  Bethel,  so,  in  a 
little  different  sense,  may  it  be  true  of  them  all.  They 
reverse,  how  touchingiy,  the  fable  of  Antaeus.  Instead 
of  receiving  from  the  earth,  when  they  touch  it,  a 
giant  strength,  they  give  to  the  earth,  as  it  takes  in 
their  blood,  a  new  inspiration  for  all  brothers  in  learn- 
ing for  long  ages  to  come  ;  and  so,  for  as  long  a  time, 
they  will  write,  and  speak,  and  sing  in  myriads  of 
great  souls  coming  after.  Perhaps  we  should  not 
think  of  educating  men  to  be  used  in  dying,  yet  the 
dying  nobly  and  with  power  is  one  of  the  most  fruitful 
and  dearest  uses  to  which  any  of  us  come.  Would  that 
all  our  youth  could  see  it !     Young  Carrington,  for  ex- 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.         839 

ample,  had  just  come  to  the  flower  of  his  graduation, 
and  the  loss  of  so  great  promise,  before  the  time  of 
fruit,  seems  to  be  total.  Far  from  that  as  possible ! 
Ho\y  many  of  his  comrades  have  been  impressed,  even 
as  they  do  not  know  themselves,  by  the  sacred  beauty 
of  his  early  sacrifice  ;  how  many  been  impregnated 
in  their  own  flowering,  with  those  best  and  highest 
sentiments  that  never  set  their  fruit  after  men  are 
past  their  flower  !  I  know  not  what  the  ingenious  and 
versatile  Blake  might  have  written,  or  how  or  when 
the  lines  of  humor  he  took  so  nicely  by  his  eye,  and 
sketched  so  adroitly  by  the  off-hand  cunning  of  his 
pencil,  might  have  flashed  into  words  and  brilliant 
authorship  ;  but  the  noble  successes  and  honors  of  his 
soldier  life,  too  soon  cut  short  in  the  fatal  fight  of 
Cedar  Mountain,  have  turned  his  key  of  humor,  how 
affectingly  ;  showing  us  in  what  close  company  a  high 
soul  often  joins  the  heroic  impulse  with  exuberant 
play. 

Great  action  is  the  highest  kind  of  writing,  and  he 
that  makes  a  noble  character  writes  the  finest  kind  of 
book.  To  invent  is  one  thing,  to  become  is  another, 
and  vastly  higher.  Young  Rice,  for  example,  who 
begins  a  private  and  ends  a  brigadier,  rushed  up  the 
steep  of  promotion  by  the  general  acclaim  of  his  supe- 
riors,— I  know  not  what  he  might  have  written ; 
enou2:h  to  know  what  he  was.  Nothino;  makes  so 
grand  a  figure,  whether  in  fact  or  fiction,  as  a  charac- 
ter of  high  adventure  coupled  with  high  principle  ;  and 
this  he  began  to  show  before  he  became  a  soldier. 


340  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

Thus,  being  in  great  trouble  after  his  graduation  for 
the  debt  incurred  in  his  studies,  he  dared  exactly  what 
few  young  men  could,  and  what  still  fewer  could  with 
success  ;  he  put  himself  boldly  before  a  gentleman  of 
wealth  to  whom  he  was  a  perfect  stranger,  craving  the 
loan  of  |)500,  engaging  to  repay  it  within  a  year,  from 
an  expected  income  in  teaching ;  and  so  well  did  he 
manage  himself  and  his  story  that  he  was  successful. 
The  mere  personal  interest  he  excited  won  the  cause 
for  him,  and  with  only  a  faint  glimmer  of  expectation 
that  the   money  would   ever  be   seen  again,  it   was 
cheerfully  put  in  his  hands.     But  before  the  appointed 
year  is  out,  behold  he  appears  with  his  fund  of  pay- 
ment ready !     Does  any  one  require  to  be  told  that 
such  a  man  will  fight,  or  that  he  will  do  it  well  and 
faithfully  ?     Passing  through   six  great   battles  and 
shining  in  them  all,  he  fell  on  the  banks  of  the  Po, 
and  was  carried  to  the  field  hospital  to  die.     In  the 
death  struggle  which  shortly  followed,  he  asked  to  be 
turned  on  his  side.     "  Which  way  shall  we  turn  you  ?  " 
"Turn  my  face  to  the  enemy,"  he  replied,  gaspingly; 
and  in  these  six  words  the  book  God  gave  him  to  write 
was  finished.     It  was  a  book  all  action,  and  he  might 
never  have  written  any  other.     It  was  a  battle  fought 
out  to  the  end,  in  the  "  front  face  "  manner  of  a  sol- 
dier ;  but  it  was  none  the  less  a  poem*  a  tragedy,  a 
character  fascinatingly  drawn.     If  it  had  been  some- 
thing to  compose  it,  as  by  literary  art,  how  much  more 
to  be  it,  with  no  art  at  all !     No,  my  brothers,  we  will 
not  bewail  these  dead  of  ours  to-day  as  being  lost  to 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.         341 

the  cause  of  letters  ;  for  the  inspirations  and  the  grand 
realities  of  letters  they  have  given  up  their  lives  to 
supply,  as  truly  as  to  save  their  country. 

I  might  also  speak  at  large,  if  I  had  time,  of  the 
immense  benefit  these  dead  have  conferred  upon  our 
free  institutions  themselves,  by  the  consecrating  blood 
of  their  sacrifice.  But  I  can  only  say  that  having 
taken  the  sword  to  be  God's  ministers,  and  to  vindi- 
cate the  law  as  his  ordinance,  they  have  done  it  even 
the  more  effectively  in  that  they  have  died  for  it.  It 
has  been  a  wretched  fault  of  our  people  that  w^e  have 
so  nearly  ignored  the  moral  foundations  of  our  gov- 
ernment. Regarding  it  as  a  merely  human  creation, 
we  have  held  it  only  by  the  tenure  of  convenience. 
Hence  came  the  secession.  For  what  we  create  by 
our  will,  may  we  not  dissolve  by  the  same  ?  Bitter 
has  been  the  cost  of  our  pitifully  weak  philosophy. 
In  these  rivers  of  blood  we  have  now  bathed  our  insti- 
tutions, and  they  are  henceforth  to  be  hallowed  in  our 
sight.  Government  is  now  become  Providential, — no 
more  a  mere  creature  of  our  human  will,  but  a  grandly 
moral  affair.  The  awful  stains  of  sacrifice  are  upon 
it,  as  upon  the  fields  where  our  dead  battled  for  it,  and 
it  is  sacred  for  their  sakes.  The  stamp  of  God's  sov- 
ereignty is  also  upon  it ;  for  he  has  beheld  their  blood 
upon  its  gate-posts  and  made  it  the  sign  of  his  passo- 
ver.  Henceforth  we  are  not  to  be  manufacturing 
government,  and  defying  in  turn  its  sovereignty 
because  we  have  made  it  ourselves ;  but  we  are  to 


342  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

revere  its  sacred  rights,  rest  in  its  sacred  immunities, 
and  have  it  even  as  the  Caesar  whom  our  Christ  him- 
self requires  us  to  obey.  Have  we  not  also  proved, 
written  it  down  for  all  the  ages  to  come,  that  the  most 
horrible,  God-defying  crime  of  this  world  is  unneces- 
sary rebellion  ? 

I  might  also  speak  of  the  immense  contribution 
made  for  religion,  by  the  sacrifices  of  these  bleeding 
years.  Religion,  at  the  first,  gave  impulse,  and,  by  a 
sublime  recompense  of  reaction,  it  will  also  receive 
impulse.  What  then  shall  we  look  for  but  for  a  new 
era  now  to  break  forth,  a  day  of  new  gifts  and  powers 
and  holy  endowments  from  on  high,  wherein  great 
communities  and  friendly  nations  shall  be  girded  in 
sacrifice,  for  the  cause  of  Christ  their  Master  ? 

But  these  illustrations  must  not  be  continued  far- 
ther. Such  are  some  of  the  benefits  we  are  put  in 
obligations  for  by  the  dead  in  this  great  war.  And 
now  it  remains  to  ask,  by  what  fitting  tribute  these 
obligations  are  to  be  paid  ?  And  it  signifies  little, 
first  of  all,  to  say :  Let  the  widows  of  these  dead  be 
widows,  and  their  children,  children  of  the  Kepublic. 
Let  them  also  be  the  private  care  of  us  all.  Let  the 
childless  families  adopt  these  fatherless.  Give  the 
sons  and  daughters  growing  up  the  necessary  educa- 
tion :  open  to  them  ways  of  industry ;  set  them  in 
opportunities  of  advancement.  Let  our  whole  people 
resolve  themselves  into  a  grand  Sanitary  Commission, 
for  these  after-blows  of  suffering  and  loss  occasioned 
by  the  war. 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  343 

Again,  it  is  another  of  the  sacred  obligations  we 
owe  to  the  dead,  that  we  sanctify  their  good  name. 
Nothing  can  be  more  annoying  to  the  sense  of  honor, 
than  the  mischievous  facility  of  some,  in  letting  down 
the  merit  and  repute  of  the  fallen  by  the  flippant 
recollection  of  their  faults,  or,  it  may  be,  of  their 
former  vices.  Who  have  earned  immunity  from  this 
petty  kind  of  criticism,  if  not  they  who  have  died  for 
their  country  ?  How  great  a  thing  has  it  been  for 
many  in  this  war,  to  spring  into  consciously  new  life, 
in  the  ennobling  discovery  that  they  could  have  a 
great  feeling !  And  what,  in  the  plane  of  mere 
nature,  will  so  transform  a  man,  as  to  be  caught  by 
the  heroic  impulse,  and  begin  to  have  the  sense  of  a 
cause  upon  him  ?  Indeed  I  am  not  sure  that  some 
specially  heroic  natures  do  not  flag  and  go  down  under 
evil,  just  because  the  storm  they  were  made  for  has 
not  begun  to  blow.  Some  such  were  greater  souls 
perhaps  than  we  thought,  and  if  they  were  not  per- 
fectly great,  who  but  some  low  ingrate  would  now  dim 
their  halo  by  a  word  ?  And  what  if  it  should  happen, 
that  even  a  Congressional  Committee  may  so  far  turn 
themselves  into  a  committee  of  scandal,  as  to  assail 
with  unrighteous  facility  the  military  merit  of  the 
dead  ?  If  the  dead  cannot  answer,  what  shall  we  do 
but  answer  for  the  dead  ? 

A  great  work  also  is  due  from  us  to  the  dead,  and 
quite  as  much  for  our  own  sakes  as  theirs,  in  the  due 
memorizing  of  their  names  and  acts.  Let  the  nation's 
grand  war  monument  be  raised  in  massive  granite, 


344  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

piercing  the  sky.  Let  every  State,  honored  by  such 
names  as  Sedgwick,  and  Lyon,  and  Mansfield,  claim 
the  right  to  their  honors  for  the  future  ages,  by  rais- 
ing, on  some  highest  mountain  top,  or  in  some  park 
of  ornament,  the  conspicuous  shaft  or  pillar,  that  will 
fitly  represent  the  majesty  of  the  men.  The  towns 
and  Tillages  will  but  honor  themselves,  when  they 
set  up  their  humbler  monuments  inscribed  with  the 
names  of  the  fallen.  Let  the  churches  also,  and  the 
college  halls  and  chapels,  show  their  mural  tablets, 
where  both  worship  and  learning  may  be  quickened 
by  the  remembrance  of  heroic  deeds  and  deaths.  In 
this  way,  or  some  other,  every  name  of  our  fallen 
Alumni  should  be  conspicuously  recorded  in  the  Col- 
lege ;  that  our  sons  coming  hither  may  learn,  first  of 
all,  that  our  mother  gives  her  best  to  die  for  their 
country. 

There  should  also  be  given  to  the  public  a  carefully 
prepared  volume,  containing  distinct  notices  and  recol- 
lections of  all  our  Alumni  who  have  fallen  in  the  war, 
and  have  held  a  figure  sufficiently  public  to  be  dis- 
tinctly commemorated.  There  are  many  such  names 
that  I  should  like  to  present  for  your  particular  re- 
membrance on  this  occasion ;  such  as  Hebard,  and 
Butler,  and  Hannahs,  and  Roberts,  and  Porter,  and 
Dutton,  and  others  who  have  won  distinction  with 
them.  I  have  already  named  a  few  examples  from 
the  general  list  in  another  connection.  Excuse  me  if 
I  briefly .  commemorate  two  others;  viz..  Captain 
William  Wheeler  and  Major  Henry  W.  Camp  ;  doing 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  845 

it  partly  for  my  ottii  satisfaction,  because  I  had  a 
particular  personal  interest  in  them. 

Young  Wheeler's  enlistment  in  an  independent 
battery  put  him  completely  out  of  the  line  of  pro- 
motion ;  and  yet  it  must  have  come,  in  some  way 
extraordinary,  shortly ;  indeed,  I  learn  that  it  was 
just  about  to  come,  by  a  stride  that  would  have  set 
him  in  a  high  position.  No  Captain  of  the  war  was 
more  efficient  or  more  perfectly  master  of  his  place ; 
none  more  thoroughly  idolized  in  the  love  and  pride 
of  his  command.  Sober,  and  cool,  and  clear-headed, 
and  perfectly  a  man  in  every  highest  quality  of  energy 
and  correct  principle  and  unfearing  devotion  to  his 
cause,  he  was  already  grandly  promoted  in  the  judg- 
ment of  all  who  knew  him.  Ordered  in  a  severe  fight 
to  shift  his  battery  to  another  position,  he  sent  it 
promptly  with  his  men,  and  having  a  piece  too  much 
disabled  to  be  moved,  he  could  not  leave  it,  but  letting 
go  his  horse  took  hold  with  a  sergeant,  and  they  two, 
loading  and  firing  in  a  battle  of  their  own,  leveled 
their  aim  with  such  precision,  while  the  enemy's  grape 
were  spattering  on  the  gun,  that  they  drove  back  the 
advancing  column  and  saved  the  piece.  How  they 
lived  a  moment  in  such  a  storm  nobody  could  guess  ; 
but  alas !  the  sharpshooter's  single  bullet  took  him 
afterwards,  at  a  post  of  honor  given  him  and  his  lit- 
tle command  to  be  maintained  by  them  alone,  and 
there  his  brave,  noljle  chapter  of  life  was  ended. 

Major  Camp  I  had  known  from  his  childhood, 
onward,  and    had  watclied   him  with  a  continually 


346  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

growing  expectation  to  the  last.  His  wondrously  fine 
person  was  a  faithful  type  of  his  whole  character  and 
power.  His  modesty  and  courage  never  parted  com- 
pany. His  almost  over-delicate  conscience  was  fitly 
fortified  by  a  strong,  unsubduable  will.  He  had  no 
flash  qualities,  but  was  always  unfolding  in  full  round 
harmony  with  himself.  As  a  man  he  scarcely  dared 
to  think  himself  a  Christian ;  as  a  Christian  he  was 
never  any  the  less  perfectly  a  man.  My  impression 
of  him  is  that  I  have  never  known  so  much  of  worth, 
and  beauty,  and  truth,  and  massive  majesty ;  so  much, 
in  a  word,  of  all  kinds  of  promise,  embodied  in 
any  young  person.  Whatever  he  might  undertake, 
whether  to  be  a  poet,  or  a  philosopher,  or  a  states- 
man, or  a  preacher,  or  a  military  commander,  or  in- 
deed an  athlete,  he  seemed  to  have  every  quality  on 
hand  necessary  to  success.  And  this  I  think  is  the 
impression  of  him  that  every  reader  of  his  noble  story 
will  have  received.  When  he  fights  a  college  boat 
race  at  Worcester,  or  the  sea  at  Hatteras  Inlet,  or  the 
enemy  at  Newborn,  or  the  dreary  rigors  of  a  prison, 
or  the  impossible  rigors  of  an  escape,  it  makes  little 
difference  whether  he  is  successful  or  not ;  everybody 
sees  that  he  ought  to  be.  Finally  paroled  and  released, 
after  many  long  months  of  confinement,  he  returns 
home  on  a  short  furlough  ;  but  hearing,  only  five  days 
after,  that  he  has  been  exclianged,  he  tears  himself 
away  from  furlough  and  friends,  and  is  off  in  two 
hours  time  for  his  regiment.  And  he  joins  them  on 
the  field  of  battle,  welcomed  by  the  acclamations  of 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.          347 

the  men  and  the  hearty  cheers  of  the  command. 
Though  he  has  a  nature  gentle  as  a  woman's,  he  is 
yet  called  the  Iron  Man ;  and  the  iron  property  was 
abundantly  shown  again  and  again,  wherever  that 
kind  of  metal  was  wanted.  His  regiment,  always 
relied  on,  is  finally  brought  up  in  two  lines  to  head  an 
assault,  and  he  is  purposely  set  on  the  wing  of  the 
second  line,  that  he  may  not  be  thrown  away.  Be- 
lieving that  the  assault  must  be  an  utter  failure,  for 
that  was  the  opinion  of  all,  he  still  modestly  suggested 
that  he  might  be  put  upon  the  forward  line !  And 
there  he  fell  riddled  with  bullets,  only  not  to  see  the 
general  massacre  of  the  men.  0,  it  was  a  dark,  sad 
day  that  cost  the  loss  of  such  a  man  ! 

"For  Lycidas  is  dead,  dead  ere  Ms  prime. 
Young  Lycidas,  and  liatli  not  left  his  peer." 

Little  does  it  signify  to  him,  though  much  to  us, 
that  his  memory  should  be  sanctified  by  some  endur- 
ing record. 

And  yet,  speaking  thus  of  particular  names  and 
leaders  to  be  commemorated,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
be  troubled  by  a  certain  feeling  of  absurdity,  that  our 
honors  cannot  be  graded,  after  all,  by  any  scale  of 
justice.  Multitudes  of  the  bravest  are  nameless ;  or 
if  we  find  their  names,  we  know  not  whose  they  are, 
or  where  or  how  they  fell.  I  certainly  would  not 
diminish  the  glory  of  the  great  commanders,  whether 
dead  or  living.  Commanders  are  the  brain  of  all 
movement  and  the  soul  of  all  great  confidence,  gath- 


348    OUR  OBLIGATIONS  TO  THE  DEAD. 

ering  up  in  their  person  whole  divisions  and  armies 
and  hurling  them  forward  upon  victory.  And  yet 
how  much  does  it  signify  that  they  have  men  to  in- 
spire and  lead  who  can  dare  to  be  men,  and  fight  in 
the  sense  of  a  cause !  And  if  we  speak  of  courage 
to  die,  how  many  thousands  who  were  only  privates, 
and  are  now  without  a  name,  have  faced,  each  one, 
more  perils,  pitched  themselves  into  more  cannons' 
mouths  and  more  bayonetted  columns,  than  all  the 
Major-Generals  of  the  armies  ! 

Ten  color-bearers,  for  example,  seize  the  fatal  staff, 
one  after  another,  and  the  last  finally  plants  it  on  the 
edge  of  the  parapet  to  be  gained !  Hegiments  that 
are  sworn  to  never  falter,  pushed  into  the  assault 
again  and  again  because  they  can  be  relied  on,  bearing 
off  their  dead  each  time  till  they  are  reduced  to  a 
handful,  yet  ready  to  halve  that  handful,  if  they  must, 
in  heading  an  assault  that  every  man  of  them  knows 
to  be  senseless, — this  I  call  great  soldiership  !  Make 
due  note  too  of  those  thousands  of  prisoners,  shut  up 
in  the  pen  of  their  captivity,  without  ofiicers,  deci- 
mated every  month  and  almost  every  day  by  starva- 
tion, yet  voting,  to  a  man,  that  they  will  never  yield 
their  allegiance  to  even  that  cogent  argument !  Or 
go  through  the  wards  of  any  crowded  hospital,  where 
the  men  are  dying  ever}^  hour,  and  catch  the  mes- 
sages they  send  to  wife,  or  child,  or  sweetheart :  "  Say 
that  I  am  gone  ;  and  that,  never  having  once  regretted 
my  enlistment,  I  willingly  die  for  my  country."  Who 
of  you  does  not  ache  with  me  for  the  impossibility  of 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.         349 

doing  justice  to  these  glorious  obscure,  these  private 
heroes  of  the  war?  What  ghostly  troops  of  them  had 
our  good  father  and  martyr  President  sent  on  before 
him,  from  all  his  fields  of  battle  !  And  as  our  Abra- 
ham's bosom  was  never  shut  to  such  on  earth,  much 
more  tenderly  open  will  it  be  now !  How  pater- 
nally has  he  greeted  them !  How  eagerly  caught 
the  sublime  story  of  their  soldiership !  And  if  he 
could  return  again  to  his  office,  it  would  not  be 
strange  if  he  should  send  in  a  new  batch  of  Major- 
Generals  to  be  passed,  whom  the  Senate  never  before 
heard  of  !  Really  this  wonderful  massing  of  private 
worth  and  public  valor  in  our  armies,  is  the  proudest 
fact  of  the  war,  and  we  owe  it  to  ourselves  to  say  it, 
and  to  make  our  account  of  it,  in  whatever  way  we 
are  able. 

But  there  is  one  other  and  yet  higher  duty  that  we 
owe  to  these  dead ;  viz.,  that  we  take  their  places  and 
stand  in  their  cause.  It  is  even  a  great  law  of  natural 
duty  that  the  living  shall  come  into  the  places  and 
works  of  the  dead.  The  same  also  is  accepted  and 
honored  by  Christianity,  when  it  shows  the  Christian 
son,  and  brother,  and  friend,  stepping  into  the  places 
made  vacant  by  the  dead,  to  assume  their  blessed  and 
great  work  unaccomplished,  and  die,  if  need  be,  in  the 
testimony  of  a  common  martyrdom.  Tliey  challenged,' 
in  this  manner,  if  the  commentators  will  suffer  it,' 
the  vows  of  baptism,  and  "  were  baptized  for  the 
dead," — consecrated  upon  the  dead,  for  tlie  work  of 
the  dead.     God  lays  it  upon  us  in  the  same  way  now, 


850  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

to  own  the  bond  of  fealty  that  connects  us  with  the 
fallen,  in  the  conscious  community  and  righteous  kin- 
ship of  their  cause.  And  then,  as  brothers  baptized 
for  the  dead, — Alumni,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Republic, — 
we  are  to  execute  their  purpose  and  fulfill  the  idea 
that  inspired  them.  Neither  is  it  enough  at  this  point 
to  go  off  in  a  general  heroic,  promising,  in  high  rheto- 
ric, to  give  our  life  for  the  country  in  like  manner. 
There  is  no  present  likelihood  that  we  shall  be  called 
to  do  any  such  thing.  No,  but  we  have  duties  upon 
us  that  are  closer  at  hand ;  viz.,  to  wind  up  and  settle 
this  great  tragedy  in  a  way  to  exactly  justify  every 
drop  of  blood  that  has  been  shed  in  it.  Like  the 
blood  of  righteous  Abel  it  cries  both  to  us  and  to  God, 
from  every  field,  and  river,  and  wood,  and  road,  dotted 
by  our  pickets  and  swept  by  the  march  of  our  armies. 
First  of  all  we  are  sworn  to  see  that  no  vestige  of 
state  sovereignty  is  left,  and  the  perpetual,  supreme 
sovereignty  of  the  nation  established.  For  what  but 
this  have  our  heroes  died  ?  Not  one  of  them  would 
have  died  for  a  government  of  mere  optional  continu- 
ance ;  not  one  for  a  government  fit  to  be  rebelled 
against.  But  they  volunteered  for  a  government  in 
perfect  right,  and  one  to  be  perpetual  as  the  stars, 
and  they  went  to  the  deatli  as  against  the  crime  of 
hell.  Tell  me  also  this, — if  a  government  is  good 
enough  to  die  /or,  is  it  not  good  enough  to  die  hy^ 
when  it  is  violated  ?  Not  that  every  traitor  is,  of 
course,  to  be  visited  by  the  punishment  of  treason.  It 
is  not  for  me  to  say  who,  or  how  many  or  few,  shall 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  851 

suffer  that  punishment.  But  I  would  willingly  take 
the  question  to  the  dead  victims  of  Belle  Isle,  and 
Salisbury,  and  Andersonville,  and  let  them  be  the 
judges.  There  is  no  revenge  in  them  now.  The  wild 
storms  of  their  agony  are  laid,  and  the  thoughts  which 
bear  sway  in  the  world  where  they  are  gathered  are 
those  of  the  merciful  Christ,  and  Christ  is  the  judge 
before  whose  bar  they  know  full  well  that  their  redress 
is  sure.  And  yet  I  think  it  will  be  none  the  less  their 
judgment  that  something  is  due  to  law  and  justice 
here.  As,  too,  it  was  something  for  them  to  die  for 
the  law,  I  can  imagine  them  to  ask  whether  it  is  not 
something  for  the  law  to  prove  its  vindicated  honor  in 
the  fit  punishment  of  such  barbarities  ?  May  it  not 
occur  to  them  also  to  ask,  whether  proportion  is  not 
an  everlasting  attribute  of  justice  ?  And  if  punctual 
retribution  is  to  follow  the  sudden  taking  off  of  one, 
whether  the  deliberate  and  slow  starvation  of  so  many 
thousands  is  to  be  fitly  ignored  and  raise  no  sword  of 
judgment  ?  Neither  is  it  any  thing  to  say,  that  the 
awful  ruin  of  the  rebellious  country  is  itself  a  punish- 
ment upon  the  grandest  scale,  and  ought  to  be  suffi- 
cient ;  for  the  misery  of  it  is,  that  it  falls  on  the  inno- 
cent and  not  on  the  leaders  and  projectors,  who  are 
the  chief  criminals.  Our  liberal  friends  abroad  con- 
jure us  to  follow  the  lead  of  their  despotisms,  and 
cover  up  gently  all  these  offenses,  because  they  are 
only  political.  Ah  !  there  is  a  difference  which  they 
need  to  learn.  Doubtless  governments  may  be  bad 
enough  to  make  political  offenses  innocent ;  nay,  to 


352         OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

make  them  even  righteous.  But  we  have  not  fought 
this  dreadful  war  to  a  close,  just  to  put  our  govern- 
ment upon  a  par  with  their  oppressive  dynasties  I 
We  scorn  the  parallel  tliey  give  us ;  and  we  owe  it 
even  to  them  to  say,  that  a  government  which  is 
friendly,  and  free,  and  right,  protecting  all  alike,  and 
doing  the  most  for  all,  is  one  of  God's  sacred  finalities, 
wdiich  no  hand  may  touch,  or  conspiracy  assail,  with- 
out committing  the  most  damning  crime,  such  as  can 
be  matched  by  no  possible  severities  of  justice.  We 
are  driven  in  thus  on  every  side,  upon  the  conclusion 
that  examples  ought  to  be  and  must  be  made.  Only 
they  must  be  few  and  such  as  can  be  taken  apart  from 
all  sectional  conditions ;  for  we  have  sections  to  com- 
pose, and  the  ordinary  uses  of  punishment  in  cases  of 
private  treason  do  not  pertain  where  the  crime  is 
nearly  geographic,  and  is  scarcely  different  from  pub- 
lic war. 

One  thing  more  we  are  also  sworn  upon  the  dead  to 
do ;  viz.,  to  see  that  every  vestige  of  slavery  is  swept 
clean.  We  did  not  begin  the  war  to  extirpate  slavery  ; 
]3ut  the  war  itself  took  hold  of  slavery  on  its  way,  and 
as  this  had  been  the  gangrene  of  our  wound  from  the 
first,  we  shortly  put  ourselves  heartily  to  the  cleans- 
ing, and  shall  not,  as  good  surgeons,  leave  a  part  of 
the  virus  in  it.  We  are  not  to  extirpate  the  form  and 
leave  the  fact.  The  whole  black  code  must  go  ;  the 
law  of  passes,  and  the  law  of  evidence,  and  the  unequal 
laws  of  suit  and  impeachment  for  crime.  We  are 
bound,  if  possible,  to  make  the  emancipation  work 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  353 

well ;  as  it  never  can,  till  the  old  habit  of  domination, 
and  the  new  grudges  of  exasperated  pride  and  passion, 
are  qualified  by  gentleness  and  consideration.  Other- 
wise there  will  be  no  industry  but  only  jangle ;  society 
in  fact  will  be  turned  into  a  hell  of  poverty  and  confu- 
sion. And  this  kind  relationship  never  can  be  secured, 
till  the  dejected  and  despised  race=  are  put  upon  the 
footing  of  men,  and  allowed  to  assert  themselves  some- 
how in  the  laws.  Putting  aside  all  theoretic  notions 
of  equality,  and  regarding  nothing  but  the  practical 
want  of  the  emancipation,  negro  suffrage  appears  to 
be  indispensable.  But  the  want  is  one  thing,  and  the 
right  of  compelling  it  another.  Our  States  have 
always  made  their  own  laws  of  suffrage,  and  if  we 
want  to  resuscitate  the  state  rights  doctrine,  there  is 
no  so  ready  way  as  to  rouse  it  by  state  wrongs.  But 
there  is  always  a  way  of  doing  what  wants  to  be 
done, — pardon  me  if  I  name  it  even  here ;  for  our 
dead  are  not  asking  mere  rhetoric  of  us,  but  duty. 
They  call  us  to  no  whimpering  over  them,  no  sad 
weeping,  or  doling  of  soft  sympathy,  but  to  counsel 
and  true  action.  I  remember  too,  that  we  have  taken 
more  than  a  hundred  thousand  of  these  freedmen  of 
the  war  to  fight  our  common  battle.  I  remember  the 
massacre  of  Fort  Pillow.  I  remember  the  fatal  assault 
of  Fort  Wagner  and  the  gallant  Shaw  sleeping  there 
in  the  pile  of  his  black  followers.  I  remember  the 
bloody  fight  and  victory  on  the  James,  where  the 
ground  itself  was  black  with  dead.  Ah,  there  is  a 
debt  of  honor  here  !     And  honor  is  never  so  sacred  as 


35-4  OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD. 

when  it  is  due  to  the  weak.  Blasted  and  accursed  be 
the  soul  that  will  forget  these  dead  !  If  they  had  no 
offices  or  honors,  if  they  fought  and  died  in  the  plane 
of  their  humility, — Thou  just  God,  forbid  that  we  suffer 
them  now  to  be  robbed  of  the  hope  that  inspired  them ! 
Do  then  simply  this,  which  we  have  a  perfect  con- 
stitutional right  to  do, — pass  this  very  simple  amend- 
ment, that  the  basis  of  representation  in  Congress 
shall  hereafter  be  the  number,  in  all  the  States  alike, 
of  the  free  male  voters  therein.  Then  the  work  is 
done ;  a  general  free  suffrage  follows  by  consent,  and 
as  soon  as  it  probably  ought.  For  these  returning 
States  will  not  be  long  content  with  half  the  offices 
they  want,  and  half  the  power  allowed  them  in  the 
Republic.  Negro  suffrage  is  thus  carried  without 
even  naming  the  word. 

Need  I  add,  that  now,  by  these  strange  fortunes  of 
the  rebellion  rushing  on  its  Providential  overthrow, 
immense  responsibilities  are  put  upon  us,  that  are 
new.  A  new  style  of  industry  is  to  be  inaugurated. 
The  soil  is  to  be  distributed  over  again,  villages  are 
to  be  created,  schools  established,  churches  erected, 
preachers  and  teachers  provided,  and  money  for  these 
^  purposes  to  be  poured  out  in  rivers  of  benefaction, 
even  as  it  has  been  in  the  war.  A  whole  hundred 
years  of  new  creation  will  be  needed  to  repair  these 
wastes  and  regenerate  these  habits  of  wrong  ;  and  we 
are  baptized  for  the  dead,  to  go  forth  in  God's  name, 
ceasing  not,  and  putting  it  upon  our  children  never  to 
cease,  till  the  work  is  done. 


OUR    OBLIGATIONS    TO    THE    DEAD.  355 

My  task  is  now  finished ;  only,  alas !  too  feebly. 
There  are  many  things  I  might  say,  addressing  you 
as  Alumni,  as  professors  and  teachers,  and  as  schol- 
ars training  here  for  the  new  age  to  come.  But  you 
will  anticipate  my  suggestions,  and  pass  on  by  me,  to 
conceive  a  better  wisdom  for  yourselves.  One  thing 
only  I  will  name,  which  is  fitting,  as  we  part,  for  us 
all ;  viz.,  that  without  any  particle  of  vain  assump- 
tion, we  swear  by  our  dead  to  be  Americans.  Our 
position  is  gained !  Our  die  of  history  is  struck ! 
Thank  God  we  have  a  country,  and  that  country  has 
the  chance  of  a  future !  Ours  be  it  henceforth  to 
cherish  that  country,  and  assert  that  future  ;  also,  to 
invigorate  both  by  our  own  civilization,  adorn  them 
by  our  literature,  consolidate  them  in  our  religion. 
Ours  be  it  also,  in  G-od's  own  time,  to  champion,  by  land 
and  sea,  the  right  of  this  whole  continent  to  be  an 
American  world,  and  to  have  its  own  American  laws, 
and  liberties,  and  institutions. 


XI. 

LETTEE  TO  HIS  HOLINESS,  POPE  GEEGOEY  XYI  * 


Venerable  Pontiff: — 

This  letter,  I  am  well  aware,  will  be  unwelcome  to 
yon.  I  shall  speak  plainly  in  it,  and  I  hope  I  may 
suffer  no  undue  restraint  from  the  eminence  of  your 
position.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  my  design  so  to 
speak,  that,  if  I  seem  to  be  your  adversary  in  some 
things,  you  may  still  acknowledge  me  to  be  a  respect- 
ful and  not  ungenerous  adversary.  I  distinguish  be- 
tween your  office  and  your  person.  If  then  I  exercise 
a  degree  of  freedom,  which  indicates  how  little  it 
signifies  to  me  that  you  are  the  pope,  let  it  soften  the 
affront  that  your  venerable  age  and,  if  I  may  trust 
the  opinion  of  many,  the  more  venerable  inoffensive- 
ness  of  your  gray  hairs,  require  me  to  approach  you 
Avith  sentiments  of  personal  deference,  which  I  could 
not  feel,  either  towards  your  office,  or  your  peculiar 

*  Piiblislied  in  London,  April  2,  1846,  on  his  return  from  Italy; 
afterwards  translated  into  Italian  and  widely  circulated ;  recorded 
also  in  tlie  Index  Expurgatorius,  and  specified  hj  proclamation, 
as   one  of   the  seditious  publications  to  be  suppressed  by  the 

Police. 

(356) 


LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS  35T 

religious  opinions.  Indeed,  there  is  one  thing  only 
which  withholds  me  in  this  duty,  viz.,  the  question: 
Why  should  1  trouble  thus  an  old  man's  end  ? — Is  it 
not  unmerciful  to  meet  him  thus  at  his  grave's  edge, 
and  upbraid  him  there  with  errors  he  cannot  rectify 
and  wrongs  he  cannot  redress  ?  But  I  remember  that 
the  sorrows  and  miseries  of  your  dominion  are 
also  old, — older  far  than  you,  and  not  less  entitled  to 
pity.  I  remember  too,  that  an  old  man,  who  has 
passed  over  all  the  heights  of  honor  and  ambition, 
and  has  nothing  left  him  but  his  Judge,  will  some- 
times be  accessible  to  remonstrances  which  others 
could  not  hear.  At  the  same  time,  what  I  shall  for- 
mally charge  will  not  be  designed  to  lie  against  you 
personally,  but  only  against  the  system  which  is  repre- 
sented in  you,  and  has  you  for  its  instrument, — I 
would  fain  hope  its  unwilling  and,  in  some  things  at 
least,  its  unadvised  instrument, — which  if  you  dis- 
cover, what  is  it  but  the  dearest  privilege  God  has 
given  you  in  life,  that  you  may  quit  the  world  leaving 
your  paternal  testimony  to  the  evils  and  wrongs  it  is 
too  late  for  you  to  remedy  ? 

Let  it  not  be  a  forfeiture  of  your  good  will  or  pa- 
tience, if  I  address  you  as  a  member  of  the  Christian 
Alliance  of  the  United  States.  That  society  has  none 
of  the  atrocious  designs  you  seem  to  have  apprehended, 
judging  from  the  bull  you  issued  so  promptly  on 
receiving  notice  of  its  organization.  It  works  no 
secret  plots  against  your  peace.  Its  object  is  openly 
professed,  namely,  to  prepare  the  way  for  a  reforma- 


358  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

tion  of  your  cluircli  by  rendering  it  accessible  to  truth. 
We  believe  that  the  time  for  using  church  penalties  in 
place  of  Christian  arguments,  dungeons  instead  of 
doctrine,  has  gone  by  ;  that  a  better  day  has  come, 
one  that  better  suits  the  rational  and  merciful  spirit 
of  Christianity.  We  combine,  therefore,  to  express 
our  grief  at  the  dishonor  you  reflect  upon  religion 
by  suppressing  longer  the  freedom  of  religious  faith 
and  argument  among  your  subjects.  We  believe  that 
England  and  the  United  States  have  only  yielded  to 
first  principles,  in  allowing  your  teachers  the  utmost 
freedom  of  doctrine  within  their  borders ;  and  that 
you,  in  imposing  a  rigid  silence  upon  our  teachers  in 
the  Roman  States,  violate  the  same  first  principles, 
and  that  in  a  manner  that  is  arrogant  and  offensive, 
as  well  as  a  bitter  violation  of  our  Christian  rights. 
In  one  word,  we  ask  of  you  to  yield  us  and  your  sub- 
jects religious  liberty,  that  is,  to  renounce  force  as  an 
instrument  of  religion,  that  is,  to  give  up  a  kind  of 
slavery  as  much  more  cruel  than  any  other,  as  im- 
mortality is  dearer  than  the  body,  as  much  more 
impious  as  it  is  closer  upon  the  rights  of  God. 

It  is  right  to  add  that  in  making  the  tour  of  Italy, 
which  I  have  recently  done,  I  have  acted  in  no  respect 
as  an  agent  of  the  Alliance.  I  came  among  you  sim- 
ply as  an  ordinary  traveler,  though  not  without  appre- 
hension, from  the  tone  of  your  bull,  that  I  must  owe 
it  to  some  oversight  of  your  police  if  I  Avas  permitted 
to  pass.  I  have  seen  of  course  what  fell  under  my 
eyes.     I  have  inquired,  as  every  intelligent  traveler 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  359 

-^ill,  and,  perliaps,  with  a  little  more  than  ordinary 
diligence.  Nothing  has  been  more  agreeable  to  me 
than  to  find,  that  in  some  things  my  judgments  of 
your  system  would  bear  to  be  softened,  and  where  I 
have  been  able  to  find  positive  excellences  or  beau- 
ties in  it,  they  have  yielded  me  the  sincerest  pleasure. 
And  yet,  I  return  with  a  spirit  afflicted  by  the  dismal 
picture  of  what  I  have  seen.  The  mournful  image 
of  your  state  follows  me ;  and  I  sit  down  to  write  this 
remonstrance,  not  without  some  hope  of  the  blessing 
promised  to  such  as  visit  them  that  are  in  prison  and 
minister  unto  them.  The  sentiments  I  offer  are  my 
own,  and  are  offered  on  my  own  responsibility.  I 
only  hope  they  will  meet  the  general  approbation  of  a 
society  in  whose  dignified  and  merciful  aims  I  feel  so 
profound  an  interest. 

And  first  of  all,  I  must  protest  against  the  dishonor 
you  do  to  religion,  by  the  kind  of  civil  government 
you  maintain,  in  connection  with  your  spiritual  office. 
It  is,  to  say  the  least,  a  very  extraordinary  thing  that 
you,  who  call  yourself  a  minister  and  even  vicar  of 
Christ,  should  become  just  that  royal  person,  or  king, 
he  dared  not  consent  to  be.  This  however  you  are, 
and  if  so,  the  responsibility  is  on  you ;  a  responsi- 
bility measured  not  by  the  extent  of  your  power  only, 
but  more  by  the  sacredness  of  your  pretensions.  You 
assume  to  be  the  head  of  the  Christian  church,  and  a 
large  part  of  the  world  have  so  little  knowledge  of 
any  other  form  of  religion,  as  really  to  suppose  that 
you   are  the  veritable  representation  of   Christianity 


860  LETTER    TO     HIS    HOLINESS 

itself.  And  yet  you  have  the  credit,  everywhere,  of 
presiding  over  the  worst  government  in  Christendom  ! 
To  the  traveler  passing  through  your  states,  nothing- 
wears  a  look  of  thrift  and  happiness :  no  sign  of  im- 
provement meets  the  eye,  which  is  not  refuted  by 
signs  of  decay  and  deterioration.  As  the  dismal 
Campagna,  once  a  region  of  fertility  and  teeming  with 
life,  circles  Rome  with  silence  and  desolation,  so  in  a 
political  sense,  every  thing  about  you  that  partakes 
the  nature  of  hope,  of  social  beauty  and  public  pro- 
gress, is  withered  away  in  the  malignant  atmosphere 
of  your  priestly  despotism. 

Your  ministers,  all  absolute,  have  yet  no  definite 
sphere  of  action,  and  are  held  to  no  responsibility.  In 
their  decrees,  they  perpetually  contradict  each  other 
and  you,  encroaching  too  upon  the  tribunals  of  justice 
in  contrary  ways,  as  these  do,  in  their  turn,  upon  the 
jurisdiction  and  decisions  one  of  another.  Obedience 
is  confused  and  baffled  ;  and  wrong  surrounded  by  so 
many  rival  functions,  which  ought  to  be  its  avengers, 
is  obliged  to  buy  its  redress  at  so  dear  a  price,  that 
the  public  remedy  is  often  worse  and  more  cruel  than 
the  private  injury.  For,  with  few  exceptions,  every 
centre  of  power  is  the  seat  of  some  cabal ;  and  crea- 
tures, male  and  female,  glide  about  the  precincts,  who 
are  able,  by  the  base  and  criminal  secrets  in  their 
keeping,  or  perhaps,  by  terms  of  partnership  wxll 
understood,  to  open  or  shut  at  will  the  gates  of  favor. 
Innocence  is  no  protection ;  for  your  criminal  trials 
are  secret,  and  have  the   character  of  all  works  of 


POPE    GREGORY    XYI.  361 

darkness.     If  a  man  has  property,  there  is  really  no 
chance  for  him  but  to  run  the  gauntlet  boldly,  and 
escape  with  what  he  can,  or  else  to  worm  his  way 
through    by  bribery.     To  exhibit  talent,  out  of  the 
priesthood,   is    suspicious  and  dangerous;    spies  are 
put  upon  watch  for  a  reward,  and  exile  most  assuredly 
is  near  at  hand.     Your  ambitious  and  greedy  priest- 
hood have  engrossed,  not  only  the  churches  and  the 
monasteries,  but  the  spheres  of  education,  the  courts 
of  law  and  all  the  higher  magistracies  ;  even  the  min- 
ister of  war  must  be  a  prelate.     Every  nutritive  and 
stimulating  hope  is  thus  taken  away  from  the  youth. 
No  avenue  to  advancement  is  left  open  save  throuo-h 
the  humble  door  of  ecclesiastical  dependence ;  a  fact 
which  discourages  every  magnanimous  struggle,  and 
turns  all  the  currents  of  ambition  into  the  channels 
of  hypocrisy,  the  meanest  of  sins.     Never  shall  I  for- 
get the  sad  look  of  a  brilliant,  accomplished  youth, 
when  he  said  :  "  Sir,  there  is  no  hope  for  us  here ;  the 
priests  have  taken  every  thing  away  from  us."    Mean- 
time, the  more  profitable  forms  of  business  you  have 
sold,  under   favor,  as  monopolies.     The  contraband 
trade,  which  is  now  in  profit,  is  also  virtually  sold, 
the  duties  by  which  it  is  created  being  kept  up,  it 
is  seriously  declared,  by  a  continued  intrigue  between 
the  smugglers  and  certain  persons  about  the  govern- 
ment.    What  is  left  after  public  favoritism  has  ex- 
hausted its  smiles,  and  secret  cunning  its  greediness, 
goes  to  the  benefit  of  honest  enterprise.     Physical 
industry  or  labor,  being  naturally  the  most  defence- 


362  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

less  of  all  interests,  sinks,  of  course,  to  a  depression 
most  hopeless  and  sorrowful  of  all.  Then,  lest  misery 
should  heave  the  sigh  of  impatience,  or  woe  give  vent 
to  the  unlicensed  groan,  you  quarter  on  your  impov- 
erished and  dispirited  States  an  army  of  soldiers  large 
enough  to  keep  the  peace  of  an  empire.  Next  you 
add  another  army  of  ecclesiastics,  out  of  all  proportion 
with  their  resources,  and  I  should  hope  even  with 
their  sins,  (at  Rome  one  to  every  twenty-eiglit  of  the 
people,)  and  these  subsist  of  course,  by  dead  com- 
sumption  too,  and  as  a  public  burden.  And  then,  as 
if  earth  could  not  yield  ministers  of  exaction  enough, 
you  quarter  on  them  also  a  third  army  of  saints,  who 
are  the  Avorst  and  most  terrible  scourge  of  all ;  inas- 
much as  they  come  down  to  chain  the  ha.nds  of  indus- 
try one  day  in  three  of  the  working  days  of  the  year. 
Possibly  your  people  might  bear  up  and  thrive  under 
your  terrestrial  exactions,  but  when  heaven  comes 
down  to  mock  them,  the  struggle  is  unequal.  What 
people  bereft  of  a  Avhole  third  part  of  their  industry, 
what  people  having  all  habits  of  industry  broken  up, 
and  turned  into  the  street,  as  every  observer  knows 
your  people  are  on  the  saints'  days,  thus  to  spend  a  third 
part  of  their  time  in  compulsory  idleness,  could  long- 
retain  a  vestige  of  thrift  or  virtuous  economy  ?  In- 
deed, I  had  never  such  a  sense  of  the  prolific  bounti- 
fulness  of  nature,  as  when  I  looked  on  the  immense 
army  of  dead  consumption  you  had  brought  to  the 
prey  without  producing  a  general  starvation. 

To  complete  the  misery  of  this  picture,  we  have 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  ^  363 

only  to  add  that  you  have  blasted  the  homes  of  your 
people,  and  made  them  dry  of  comfort ;  for  it  is  here 
that  the  oppressed  of  other  nations  are  ever  able  to 
mitigate  the  bitterness  of  their  sorrows,  by  the  free- 
dom of  domestic  love  and  sympathy.  Your  confessors 
are  continually  at  work,  as  your  agents  of  police, 
hunting  after  the  symptoms  of  discontent;  busied 
every  where,  in  scenting  out,  if  possible,  even  the  un- 
easy thoughts  of  misery.  Often  have  I  heard  it  boasted 
at  Rome,  that  your  confessors  make  such  an  admira- 
ble police  !  You  have  a  confessor  between  every  wife 
and  her  husband,  and  between  both  and  their  child- 
ren ;  so  that  if  one  lisps  a  free  thought,  or  vents  a  sigh 
at  the  table,  the  story,  he  knows,  will  be  wormed 
out  of  some  one  in  the  family  ;  and  then  if  he  escapes 
the  prison,  he  must  try  what  it  is  to  wear  out,  by 
penance,  the  dissatisfaction  he  sought  to  ease  by  ex- 
pression. They  must  keep  their  secrets,  therefore,  to 
themselves,  they  must  not  trust  each  other.  There  is 
no  freedom  at  the  hearth,  the  table  is  a  gathering  of 
spies,  and  the  last  relish  of  earthly  comfort  heaven 
gives  to  soothe  the  misery  of  oppression  is  taken  away. 
It  must  follow,  of  course,  that  your  people  are  de- 
pressed in  their  character  as  they  are  in  their  circum- 
stances ;  a  point  about  which  no  traveler  is  long  in 
doubt.  He  remarks,  first  of  all,  the  generally  fine 
physical  mold  of  your  people,  the  look  of  brilliancy 
and  genius  so  common  among  them.  But  it  requires 
a  short  time  only  to  detect  the  melancholy  want  of  all 
that  is  akin  to  magnanimity  in  their  character.   They 


36-4  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

are  passionate,  cruel,  servile,  faithless  to  a  proverb, 
and  mournfully  destitute  of  all  habits  of  industry, 
order,  and  providence.  I  say  not  this  of  all  but  of  the 
many ;  and  I  charge  it  upon  you,  that  reigning  over 
them  in  the  name  of  a  religion  that  promises  to  exalt 
them  to  a  godlike  image,  you  have  sunk  them  even 
below  the  physical  mold  of  their  nature  ;  reduced  them 
to  a  deeper  ignominy  than  sin,  without  your  aid,  was 
able.  Was  it  not  some  painful  consciousness  of  this, 
which  induced  you  to  undertake  a  more  general  plan 
of  education  ?  I  was  about  to  thank  you  for 
it ;  but  why  is  it  that  when  you  undertake  a  duty 
which  approaches  the  Christlike  character,  you  inva- 
riably add  some  mark  that  is  opposite  to  the  genius  of 
Christ's  religion  ?  Why  is  it,  for  example,  that  you 
teach,  as  I  was  told  you  do,  the  geography  of  Italy,  and 
forbid  the  geography  of  the  world  ?  Are  you  afraid  to 
let  your  people  know  the  world  which  Christ  under- 
took to  make  one  brotherhood  in  the  truth  ? — afraid 
lest  possibly  some  mischievous  desire  of  liberty  or 
light  should  be  wakened  in  them  by  the  nobler  his- 
tory and  happi-er  state  of  other  communities  ?  You 
have  a  little  newspaper  too,  just  as  you  have  a  little 
geography.  It  is  about  the  size  of  a  window  pane, 
and  it  is  distinguished  by  the  fact  that  every  matter 
is  carefully  sifted  out  which  can  possibly  provoke  an 
opinion.  Nay,  the  readiest  way  for  a  Roman  to  find 
out  what  is  going  on  in  Italy  itself  is  to  take  an 
English  or  French  newspaper.  And  is  it  thus,  or  by 
such  kind  of  instruments,  that  you  expect  to  redeem 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  865 

the  character  of  jour  people,  and  the  dishonored  name 
of  your  government  ?  Are  you  so  blind  as  to  think 
that  you  can  give  your  people  a  standing  as  men,  in 
such  an  age  as  this,  without  light,  without  a  knowledge 
of  the  world, — the  empires  between  which  it  is  distrib- 
uted, and  the  institutions  by  which  they  are  distin- 
guished ? 

Possibly  these  strictures  on  your  government  may 
be,  in  some  particulars,  erroneous ;  but  their  general 
correctness  is  evident  to  the  eyes  of  your  people  and 
of  all  travelers.  Perhaps  you  will  plead,  in  answer  to 
them,  the  distinctness  of  your  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
rule,  and  that  any  apparent  failure  in  your  civil  de- 
partment must  be  taken  by  itself  and  attributed  to 
historical  causes  separate  from  your  religion.  On  the 
contrary,  it  will  be  found  that  every  one  of  the  marks 
of  civil  depression  which  I  have  named,  if  you  review 
the  catalogue^  is  the  legitimate  fruit  of  ecclesiastical 
causes,  and  of  nothing  else.  Of  this,  I  can  give  you 
also  even  statistical  proof.  I  saw  it  established,  not 
long  ago,  by  a  curious  collation  of  statistics  from  the 
several  states  of  Italy,  though  the  document  is  not  now 
within  my  reach,  that  the  deficiency  of  exports  in  the 
several  states,  the  want  of  education,  the  severity  of 
the  public  burdens,  the  number  of  crimes  and  of 
illegitimate  births,  is  just  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  ecclesiastics  !  Rome,  the  spiritual  city,  the  metropo- 
lis of  the  church  of  God,  having  the  greatest  number 
of  ecclesiastics,  is  worst  and  basest  of  all.  God  grant 
you  the  Christian  sensibility  to  weep  over  a  fact  so 
humiliating. 


S66  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

Consider,  a  moment,  how  you  stand  before  us  and 
the  world.  We  find  you  exercising  kingly  power. 
You  tell  us  also,  that  you  are  the  chief  bishop  of  tlie 
church  of  God,  and  the  representative  of  Christ  on 
earth.  We  expect  you,  therefore,  as  king  of  the 
Roman  States,  to  show  us  the  most  benign  govern- 
ment in  the  world ;  the  most  enlightened,  most  mag- 
nanimous, freest,  happiest  people.  But  you  make  it 
instead  the  public  shame  of  the  Christian  religion,  that 
every  good  interest  of  society  is  blasted  under  it.  All 
calculations  based  on  the  benignity  of  Christian  virtue 
are  disappointed,  and  nothing  is  left  us  but  the  infer- 
ence that,  if  Christ  is  indeed  represented  in  you,  then 
is  Christ  one  of  the  most  malignant  obstacles  to  the 
advancement  and  happiness  of  mankind.  The  infer- 
ence is  irresistible,  and  what  is  more,  it  is  taken.  And 
therefore,  in  the  name  of  the  Christian  world,  1  pro- 
test against  the  delinquencies  by  which  you  furnish  so 
baleful  an  argument.  I  do  not  say,  or  believe,  that 
you  are  a  tyrant.  I  have  seen  no  one  of  your  people 
who  has  that  opinion  of  you.  But  the  misery  is  that 
your  ecclesiastico-civil  fabric  has  made  your  place  the 
place  only  of  a  tyrant.  You  are  set  by  your  office,  in 
the  centre  of  a  system  of  oppression,  to  preside  over 
it ;  so  that  if  you  do  not  overflow  your  office  in  some 
positive  demonstrations  of  mercy  that  amount  to  a 
revolt  against  the  system,  you  really  act  the  despot, 
with  only  the  better  grace  for  your  gentle  intentions. 
You  are  called,  in  the  style  of  your  office,  the  pope,  that 
is,  the  father  of  your  people  ;  and  doubtless  you  take 


POPE    GRECxORY    XYI.  367 

an  amiable  pleasure  in  the  designation.     Would  that 
your  unhappy  ignorance  of  a  relation  so  beautiful  did 
not  make  it  easier  to  deceive  yourself  here,  than  it 
might  be.     Where  are  the  signs  of  that  mutual  con- 
fidence, that  freedom  of  manner,  that  tenderness  of 
protection  answered  by  tenderness  of  respect,  which 
mark  the  true  paternal  relation  ?     Is  it  paternal  when 
you  go  to  your  worship  through  files  of  soldiers  ?     Is 
it  paternal  when  you  are  seen  hiring  regiments  of 
mercenaries,  because  you  cannot  trust  the  fidelity  of 
of  your  people  ?     Every  few  years  they  break  out  in 
revolution,  and  the  troops  of  Austria  are  sent  for '  to 
save  you  from  defeat  and  expulsion.     It  is  perfectly 
well  understood   by  the  world,  you   yourself  under- 
stand it  also,  that  there  is  no  day  in  the  year  in  which 
you  would  not  be  driven  out  of  Italy,  if  your  people 
were  left  to  their  will.     I  see  nothing  paternal  in  this. 
I  look  in  vain  for  some  scene  of  fatherly  benignity, 
where  you  take  your  children  to  your  arms  in  freedom, 
and  receive  their  filial  demonstrations.     The  nearest 
approach  to  it  I  have  discovered  is,  when  you  are  seen 
borne  through  the  air  above  them,  waving  your  bless- 
ing.    But  Avhen  this  pageant  is  over,  you  slink  away 
into  the  recesses  of  the  Vatican,  like   some  Eastern 
despot,  with  sentinels  to  guard  your  sleep  ;  and  if  a 
revolution  should  break  out  before  morning,  you  have 
a  postern  key  under  your  pillow,  and  a  covered  gallery 
of   masonry  strung  through  the  air,  a   half  mile  in 
length,  through  which  you  may  slip  into  the  fort  of 
St.  Angelo,  and  take   refuge  behind   the   artillery! 


368         LETTER  TO  HIS  HOLINESS 

There  your  gun-powcler  paternity  waits  to  caress  its 
children. 

But  I  must  draw  myself  a  little  closer,  and  speak  of 
things  that  lie  within  the  sacred  province  of  religion, 
not  Jiowever,  to  any  great  extent,  of  things  most  con- 
nected with  the  internal  merits  of  your  system;  for, as 
questions  of  this  nature  are  in  dispute  between  you  and 
Protestants,  I  could  hardly  expect  by  any  mere  state- 
ments to  carry  your  convictions  with  me.  But  there 
are  things  a  little  farther  off  where  I  shall  have  less 
difficulty,  and  where,  if  I  am  successful,  it  will  answer 
my  purpose  very  nearly  as  well. 

Between  you  and  your  priests,  it  is  a  thing  perfectly 
well  understood  that  your  religion  is  not  intellectual. 
To  act  on  men  through  truth,  to  address  their  under- 
standings, to  sanctify  them  through  the  truth,  is  not 
your  plan.  You  are  as  cautious  to  limit  knowledge 
as  you  are  to  give  it,  and  you  consciously  appeal  to 
superstition  as  often  as  to  reason.  This  is  the  more 
unworthy  of  you,  because  you  so  often  and  so  justly 
make  it  the  praise  of  your  church  that,  in  a  former 
age,  when  the  many  were  struggling  up  into  the  light 
from  under  their  oppressions,  she  entered  into  their 
case  and  strove  with  them.  It  was  a  noble  office,  and 
nobly  fulfilled.  The  more  should  it  mortify  you,  that 
you  can  praise  so  earnestly  what  you  shun  so  care- 
fully. You  are  afraid, — are  you  not  ? — that  more 
light,  a  more  elevated  manly  habit,  a  spirit  less  en- 
thralled and  humiliated  by  superstition,  would  neces- 
sitate some  change  or  reformation  in   your  system. 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  869 

You  have  mortgaged  yourselves  also  to  the  cause  of 
legitimacy  and  despotism ;  hoping,  as  it  seems  to  me 
very  absurdly,  to  gain  strength  by  foreign  alliances ; 
when  the  real  cause  of  your  infirmity  is  that  your 
system  is  rotting  down  on  its  own  base.  Thus  it  is 
that  you  try  no  more  to  exalt  them  that  are  of  low 
degree.  You  come  as  ministers  of  light,  but  secretly 
afraid  of  light,  and  more  careful  to  measure  it  than 
to  give  it.  This  I  say  is  not  concealed  from  your- 
selves ;  you  know  that  you  are  putting  your  church 
into  a  false  position,  though  to  save  it ;  you  wish  it 
were  not  necessary ;  you  are  secretly  ashamed  af  it : 
the  penalty  is  to  come. 

You  are  equally  ashamed,  I  am  sure,  of  the  relics 
and  the  old  wives'  fables  concerning  them,  which  the 
former  ages,  so  uncomfortably  for  you,  grafted  into 
your  infallible  system.  You  have  here  a  holy  coat, 
and  there  another, — a  half-dozen  holy  coats, — all  cer- 
tified by  your  predecessors,  if  I  rightly  remember,  to 
be  the  veritable  seamless  robe  of  Christ.  You  have 
as  many  napkins  or  sudoria  on  which  he  wiped  his 
bloody  face  in  his  passion.  You  have  the  spear  that 
pierced  his  side,  and  the  cross  on  which  he  expired. 
Here  you  have  a  church,  where  the  very  foot-prints 
are  shown  which  St.  Peter  left  miraculously  indented 
in  a  marble  pavement  when  on  his  way  to  Rome. 
Another  is  built  to  receive  the  chains  he  wore  in 
prison.  A  third  exhibits  the  altar  at  which  he  said 
mass.  A  fourth  contains  the  very  stairs  of  Pontius 
Pilate,  which   Christ  ascended  when   he  was  taken 


370  LETTER    TO     HIS    HOLINESS 

before  him.  A  fifth  preserves  the  very  table  at  which 
Christ  celebrated  the  first  supper,  and  the  porphyry 
pillar  on  which  the  cock  stood,  when  he  crowed  as  a 
sign  of  rebuke  to  Peter.  A  sixth  contains  the  cradle 
in  which  Christ  was  rocked ;  and  the  seventh,  if  not 
the  very  infant  that  he  was,  a  bambino  carved  in 
heaven  to  represent  him  and  brought  down  by  angels. 
So  also,  you  have  the  bones  of  the  magi,  the  Virgin's 
girdle,  pictures  by  St.  Luke,  and  I  know  not  how 
many  silly  trifles,  which  you  call  sacred  relics.  You 
are  obliged  to  call  them  so,  because  they  are  part  of 
your  infallibility.  If  you  display  them  to  the  multi- 
tude to  work  on  their  superstitions,  you  must  also 
exhibit  them  before  men  of  sense  ;  a  formality  which 
is  quite  as  visibly  trying  to  your  self-respect  as  to 
their  gravity.  Then  you  have  ceremonies,  which  you 
understand  as  well  as  I  are  only  solemn  fooleries  in 
the  sacred  name  of  God  and  religion  ;  such,  for  exam- 
ple, as  that  festal  day  of  buffoonery,  when  the  cattle 
and  horses  are  brought  to  St.  Antonio  to  receive  the 
priestly  blessing.  It  is  well  for  you,  that  the  animals 
are  under  a  restraint  of  nature,  else  they  might  laugh 
in  your  faces.  As  to  the  celibacy  of  the  clergy,  I 
know  very  well  that  you  are  not  yet  ready  to  own  it  a 
delusion.  The  same  clinging  to  infallibility  which 
perpetuates  the  blessing  of  the  horses,  after  the  ab- 
surdity of  the  ceremony  is  felt,  perpetuates  also  this, 
and  doubtless  there  is  as  much  true  sanctity  imparted 
by  one  as  by  the  other.  A  sad  chapter  of  history  is 
here.     I  will  not  so  far  insult  your  understanding,  as 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  371 

to  suppose  that  you  have  failed  to  learn  from  it  to 
entertain  the  most  serious  doubts  of  this  special  kind 
of  sanctity  ;  or  your  love  to  Christ's  honor,  so  far  as 
to  suspect  that  if  the  question  were  now  a  new  one, 
you  and  your  priesthood  would  not  face  the  proposed 
rule  of  celibacy  with  your  most  earnest  protestations, 
as  offering  to  men  spurious  notions  of  virtue,  and 
fraught  with  bitter  mischiefs  to  the  church. 

It  is  the  doctrine  also  of  your  church,  I  believe, 
that  you  are  its  earthly  head,  and,  in  your  official 
capacity,  infallible.  I  would  fain  like  to  know  what 
you  yourself  think  of  this  ?  Do  you  find  any  spot  in 
you  for  the  infallibility  they  speak  of  ?  I  saw  you  two 
or  three  times  during  my  stay  at  Rome.  I  should 
have  said  that  you  might  be  a  man  of  worth  and  mod- 
esty, but  I  had  no  suspicion  at  all  that  you  were  in- 
fallible in  any  sense.  It  is  not  claimed,  I  believe,  that 
you  are  infallible  in  your  character,  but  in  your  office 
only.  Is  it  then  your  happiness,  let  me  ask,  that  you 
have  fallen  into  no  official  mistake  since  you  came 
into  your  office  ?  Are  your  decrees  and  measures.,  like 
those  of  the  Almighty,  the  expression  of  a  perfect 
wisdom  ?  Is  it  possible  that  3'ou  are  clear  of  the 
ordinary  pains  of  fallibility,  the  uncertainty  of  half- 
seeing,  the  timidity  of  planning  without  foresight,  the 
indecision  of  measures  that  may  possibly  end  in  un- 
known mischief  ?  If  so,  your  modesty  may  restrain 
you  from  professing  so  great  happiness, — do  you  then 
feel  it  ?  Quite  sure  I  am,  that  whatever  there  is  of 
Christian  humility  in  you  is  hurt  and  offended  by 


372  LETTER    TO     HIS    HOLINESS 

these  pretensions.  You  secretly  nauseate  them  ;  you 
wish  it  were  possible  to  be  excused  from  the  legacy  of 
disgust  the  church  has  left  you  in  this  doctrine. 

It  is  also  a  favorite  representation  of  your  office, 
that  you  are  the  lineal  successor  of  St.  Peter.  It  is 
not  within  my  object  to  deny  that  you  are.  I  only 
say,  that  if  you  are  the  successor  of  St.  Peter,  there 
is  certainly  much  for  you  to  do,  a  large  reform  to 
make  in  order  fully  to  justify  your  claim  of  successor- 
ship.  Until  then,  it  must  savor  too  much  of  irony.  I 
saw  your  three  magnificent  palaces,  seats  of  regal 
majesty  which  the  most  splendid  monarch  in  the  rich- 
est and  most  populous  empire  of  Europe  might  envy. 
I  remembered  that  the  money  which  sustains  this 
royal  ostentation  is  wrung  out  of  a  small  state  and 
a  poverty-stricken  people,  who  have  also  to  support 
the  splendors  of  the  cardinals,  and  the  golden  liveries 
that  flame  about  the  gates  of  the  Vatican, — did  I  see, 
in  this,  the  unambitious  manners,  and  the  tender 
ministry  of  the  fisherman  of  Galilee  ?  I  turned  to  his 
words.  I  found  him  saying :  "  Feed  the  flock  of 
God."  Do  you  call  this  feeding  the  flock  ?  I  visited 
your  palace  on  the  Quirinal ;  I  traveled  through  the 
halls  adorned  with  regal  splendor,  and  more  than  regal 
art ;  I  looked  out  from  your  terraced  gardens,  which 
overhang  the  city  as  proudly  as  the  palace  of  the 
Caesars  in  the  days  of  the  Empire  ;  I  noticed  in  parti- 
cular the  parapliernalia  of  luxury  and  pleasure  on 
every  side, — your  billiard  tables,  your  grottos  of  statu- 
ary, your  closeted  bowers,  your  musical  fountains,  and 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  373 

the  ingenious  follies  you  have  prepared  to  frighten  the 
ladies  ;  but  pardon  me  if  I  could  not  bring  myself  to 
regard  this  kind  of  machinery  as  exactly  fitted  to  the 
serious  and  responsible  office  of  one  who  keeps  the  souls 
of  the  world  ;  least  of  all,  to  the  successor  of  that  hum- 
ble, unambitious  apostle,  who  took  the  legacy  of  poverty 
and  fiery  trial  his  Saviour  left  him,  bore  it  in  rough 
earnest  as  a  rough  man  only  could,  and  therein  greatly 
rejoiced.  The  stores  of  artistic  wealth  you  have  gath- 
ered round  you  in  the  Vatican  have  a  high  dignity. 
A  cultivated  sense  of  beauty  is,  at  least,  an  accom- 
plishment, and  one  which,  in  itself,  is  innocent.  But 
whosoever  has  wearied  himself,  day  after  day,  in  ex- 
ploring the  streets  of  the  Vatican  palace, — that  city 
populated  by  the  pallet  and  the  chisel, — will  not  think 
of  you  merely  as  exercising  there  the  dry  paternity  of 
a  monk  towards  the  forms  of  beauty  congregated 
round  you ;  but  he  will  think  of  these  accumulated 
stores  as  a  pageant  of  ambition ;  he  will  fancy  the 
priest  engaged  to  rival  the  prince,  and  not  displeased 
with  his  victory.  When  it  goes  out,  therefore,  that 
you  are  here  as  the  anointed  successor  of  an  apostle, 
even  the  apostle  Peter,  what  has  Peter  to  do  Avith  the 
Vatican,  or  the  lord  of  the  Vatican  with  Peter  ?  What 
bond  of  connection  is  there  between  the  apostle  of  the 
fine  arts  and  the  apostle  Peter  ? 

Nor  will  your  worship  in  the  Sistine  chapel  any 
better  assimilate  you  to  your  supposed  predecessor 
and  the  manner  of  his  time.  Woman  cannot  enter 
there  ;  the  wife  of  Peter  himself  could  not  enter,  save 


374  LETTER    TO     HIS    HOLINESS 

behind  a  screen,  lest  her  presence  should  disturb  the 
flow  of  your  sanctified  emotions.  No  profane  laic  can 
enter  save  in  a  dress  coat.  The  judgment  of  the 
world  is  artistically  transacted  over  your  altar,  that 
you  may  not  forget,  I  suppose,  at  your  altar  the 
judgment  of  the  world.  Sitting  on  your  throne,  as  the 
successor  of  the  fisherman  of  Galilee,  your  august 
person  and  the  altar  of  the  Lord  are  censed  again  and 
again  with  the  common  honors  of  worship.  The  car- 
dinals float  about  you  in  stately  trailings  and  gyra- 
tions to  pay  you  their  homage,  and  kiss  your  golden 
phylacteries;  and  your  slipper  receives  the  humbler 
homage  of  those  who  can  stoop  lower.  What  now 
could  Peter  make  of  this  ?  What  part  of  this  pageant, 
what  single  item,  do  you  imagine  ever  to  have  been  seen 
in  the  churches  of  the  apostles  ?  Meantime  I  will  not 
dispatch  with  a  question  another  item  of  the  scene, 
which  I  have  not  yet  named.  When  the  anthem  rose, 
which  was  to  lift  our  soul  to  God,  my  ear  was  caught  by 
notes  of  a  strange  quality, — not  the  voice  of  woman,  not 
of  man.  I  turned  my  eye  to  the  little  gallery  opposite 
where  I  stood,  and,  through  the  open  work  of  the 
front,  I  spied  the  scrawny,  sorrowful-looking  faces  of 
the  poor  beings  whom  you  have  damned  to  a  fall  even 
out  of  nature,  to  serve  the  luxury  of  your  worship. 
Merciful  God  !  Is  this  Christianity,  the  religion  of  him 
who  came  to  exalt  the  poor  and  restore  God's  image 
in  man  ?  That  hour  of  disgust  and  indignation  I  shall 
never  forget.  And  I  declare  to  you  here,  the  only 
place  in  which  I  can  do  it,  that  if  there  be  a  God  in 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  375 

heaven  who  hears  your  anthems  in  the  Sistine  chapel, 
the  voices  of  these  desecrated  beings  will  go  up,  not 
as  praise,  but  as  cries  for  redress  and  vengeance. 
This  cruelty  is  an  insult  to  Christ,  which  we  could  not 
pardon  in  a  harem  ;  what  then  is  it  in  a  sanctuary  of 
Avorship  ?  Above  all,  what  as  an  instrument  of  wor- 
ship ? 

The  grand  pageant  of  Christmas  was  only  an  exag- 
geration of  the  irreverent  exaggerations  of  the  chapel. 
I  pass  by  the  attendant  military  pomp  and  preparation 
of  the  hour,  and  the  imposing  show  of  princes  and  of 
the  great  of  the  kingdom  flowing  majestically  to  their 
honored  places.  What  do  we  see,  at  length,  but  a 
man,  who  is  known  as  the  successor  to  a  poor  pedes- 
trian apostle,  riding  in  through  the  air;  borne  aloft 
on  the  shoulders  of  men  in  a  purple  flood  of  glory ; 
and  followed  on  each  side,  in  stately  march,  by  slowly 
nodding  plumes  of  white,  starred  with  the  eyes  of  the 
peacock's  feathers, — emblematic,  it  is  declared,  of  the 
eyes  of  the  whole  earth,  turning  hither  to  behold  the 
representative  of  God  !  But  when  the  bearers  depos- 
ited their  gilded  burden,  as  they  did  very  near  to  the 
place  where  I  stood,  I  thought  I  could  detect  in  your 
manner  that  you  yourself  were  ashamed  of  the  figure 
that  was  made  of  you.  Pardon  me,  if  in  the  excess  of 
my  charity,  I  make  you  feel  as  a  sensible  man  and  a 
Christian  ought.  And  what,  I  could  not  but  ask, 
would  your  favorite  apostle  think  of  this,  if  he  were 
here  ?  Poor  fellow  !  Most  likely  he  would  have  lacked 
the  dress  coat  necessary  to  come  within  the  circle  of 


876  LETTER    TO     HIS     HOLINESS 

gentility,  and  therefore  could  not  have  found  a  place 
near  enough  to  look  on  his  gilded  successor  at  all. 
But  I  fancied  him  still  in  his  weather-beaten  cloak, 
and  his  brown  plebeian  face,  hanging  round  among 
tlie  distant  crowd,  and  scarce  restraining  his  indig- 
nant fire.  Well  was  it  for  the  occasion  that  he  was 
not  really  there ;  else,  possibly,  we  might  have  had 
some  demonstrations  of  the  human  Peter,  as  well  as 
of  the  saint.  I  certainly  would  not  like  to  engage, 
that  when  he  saw  the  multitude  wearing  out  the  toe 
of  his  image  by  their  idolatrous  salutations,  the  old 
sword  that  cut  off  the  ear,  (unless  before  dispensed 
with,)  would  not  have  been  heard  clashing  thick  upon 
the  demolished  head  of  his  representative.  But  re- 
turning to  his  better  mind,  he  would  doubtless  blame 
the  impetuous  gust  which  had  hurried  him  away,  and 
he  would  go  forth,  weeping  bitterly,  to  ask  of  his  Lord 
in  secret,  what  crime  he  had  committed,  that  men 
should  set  up  this  grim  idol  in  his  name  ? 

In  the  points  I  have  here  collected  for  your  notice, 
I  have  purposely  abstained  from  the  grave  questions 
between  you  and  Protestants  ;  and  yet  I  hope  to  have 
been  even  the  more  successful  in  this  way  in  produc- 
ing a  conviction,  which  cannot  be  dislodged,  of  impor- 
tant errors,  and  a  grievoUs  want  of  the  original  apos- 
tolic simplicity  in  your  church.  Indeed,  I  have  only 
stirred  convictions  by  which  you  must  have  been 
visited  many  times  before.  The  age  creeps  round 
you,  and  whispers  suspicions  and  uncomfortable  dis- 
trusts ;  you  try  to  send  them  away,  but  they  come 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  377 

back  and  loiter  with  pernicious  obstinacy  round  you. 
If  you  could  make  certain  reforms,  without  shaking 
down  your  babel  of  infallibility,  you  would  do  it.  But 
time  is  a  stubborn  teacher,  and  his  day  must  come. 
What  can  you  do  with  your  infallibility,  when  it  is 
already  shaken,  when  even  now  it  begins  to  seem  a 
little  fallible  to  you  all  ?  See  how  easily  you  are  dis- 
turbed, and  how  ready  you  are  to  find  enemies  that 
are  going  to  overwhelm  you  !  No  sooner  does  a  little 
society  come  into  existence,  or  rather  propose  to 
exist,  the  other  side  of  the  world,  than  you  come  forth 
pale  from  your  conclave,  and  publish  your  solemn  bull 
of  caution  to  the  flock.  If  a  railroad  is  proposed  by 
your  people,  that  ordinary  blessing  which  modern 
genius  has  offered  to  the  internal  commerce  of  states, 
you  dare  not  assent  to  what  other  rulers  so  eagerly 
embrace  as  the  most  innocent  well-disposed  contri- 
vance in  the  world,  because  you  fear  lest  new  ideas 
may  come  in  with  new  improvements.  And  doubtless 
you  are  right  in  this.  A  steam-car  whizzing  into 
Rome  and  by  St.  Peter's,  bringing  new  faces  from  new 
worlds,  stirring  a  motion,  filling  men's  heads  with  the 
notion  of  modern  improvement  and  the  grandeur  of 
the  conquests  over  nature  achieved  by  modern  art, — 
what  is  this,  but  the  arrival  in  Rome  of  the  new  age 
of  the  world  ?  Why,  St.  Peter's  might  as  well  never 
have  been  built.  Type  of  immutability,  confronted 
by  the  proof  of  change, — henceforth  it  is  no  better  than 
an  anchor  that  has  slipped  its  hold.  But  the  railroad 
must  come,  and  the  new  ideas  too.     You  may  possi- 


378  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

bly  delay  their  coming,  but  they  will  only  break  over 
you  in  the  more  terrible  storm  at  last.  If  you  are  to 
forbid  new  ideas,  you  ought  also  to  forbid  the  English ; 
for,  if  their  money  is  convenient,  their  presence  is 
dangerous.  What  poison  more  fatal  than  their  En- 
glish manners  to  infuse  into  your  Italian  society  ? 
Rely  upon  it,  new  thoughts  are  shaken  from  their 
skirts  whenever  they  walk  your  streets.  Their  liv- 
eries flash  newness  in  the  eyes  of  your  people.  Their 
very  money  too,  wearing  the  stamp  of  a  protestant 
face,  and  suggesting  the  prosperity  of  a  people  who 
have  equal  laws,  and  a  free  religion,  is  a  pernicious 
thing  to  look  upon.  No,  if  the  English  occupy  the 
Pincian  hill,  it  is  vain  for  you  to  occupy  the  Vatican. 
You  may  keep  their  little  church  under  quarantine 
outside  the  wall,  but  their  "new  ideas  will  come  in 
through  the  gate  and  over  the  wall, — nay,  they  will 
creep  into  your  own  windows,  and  those  of  your 
priesthood,  and  disturb  at  last  the  peace  of  you  all. 
You  may  send  for  more  troops,  but  your  Swiss  guard 
cannot  fight  away  ideas.  And  the  power  you  have  in 
yourselves  to  fight  them  away  is  marvelously  weak- 
ened, when  once  they  have  forced  their  entrance,  and 
compelled  you  to  feel  their  strength.  For  when  once 
you  begin  to  be  a  little  disingenuous ;  when,  despite 
the  many  consecrated  shams  and  superstitions  out- 
lawed by  time,  and  pomps  whose  glitter  has  changed 
to  irony,  all  thronging  round  you  with  faces  grinning 
mockery,  you  still  endeavor  to  support  the  infallibility 
that  has  been  so  often  flawed ;  then  begins  a  slow 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  879 

but  sure  process  of  debaucher}^  in  you,  which  ener- 
vates not  your  integrity  only,  but  your  will.  Besides, 
what  you  hold  by  your  will  separated  from  all  firm 
and  hearty  conviction  is  feebly  held  of  course.  Mere 
will  may  be  stiff  enough  for  a  short  time,  but,  like  a 
muscle  long  extended,  it  is  sure  at  length  to  yield. 
You  are  just  now  trying,  I  know,  to  encourage  your- 
selves in  the  hope  of  some  unknown  triumph,  about 
to  be  achieved  in  England  and,  perhaps,  in  the  United 
States.  You  are  willing  to  believe  that  your  cause  is 
rising,  and  are  even  ready  to  imagine  that  the  domin- 
ions you  have  lost  are  about  to  come  back  and  own 
your  allegiance.  But  the  very  signs  by  which  you  are 
cheered,  I  must  warn  you,  foretoken  rather  an  atti- 
tude of  firmness  and  more  compact  resistance ;  nay, 
it  is  well  for  you  if  they  do  not  rouse  a  combined 
movement  sufficiently  vigorous  to  overwhelm  you. 
Meanwhile,  you  are  losing  in  France  and  Germany 
ten-fold  what  you  gain  elsewhere.  And  Italy  itself, 
you  well  know,  is  held  to  its  allegiance  by  nothing  but 
the  Swiss  guards  and  the  foreign  alliances  ;  alliances 
which  may  dissolve  in  a  moment,  as  before  the  breath 
of  God,  on  the  occurrence  of  the  slightest  change  in 
the  attitude  of  the  European  states.  To-morrow  even 
may  find  you  without  any  protector  but  God,  which 
would  be  equivalent  to  your  utter  overthrow. 

What  then  do  we  ask  of  you  ?  If  I  have  spoken 
of  your  administration  in  terms  of  decision,  or  ap- 
parent severity,  it  is  because  I  could  not  otherwise  do 
justice  to  the  enormity  of  your  oppressions,  and  the 


380  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

offensive  baldness  of  your  priestly  frauds  and  usurpa- 
tions. See  now,  whether  I  will  ask  you  to  do  what  is 
wide  of  reason  and  charity.  I  do  not  propose  to  you 
Protestantism,  as  the  standard  of  all  wisdom  and 
duty  ;  I  simply  ask  you  to  submit  your  church  to  the 
open  trial  of  truth  in  the  field  of  religious  liberty ;  to 
withdraw  your  bayonets,  close  up  the  grim  doors  of 
your  prisons,  and  bare  your  bosoms  to  the  truth.  If 
we  are  wrong,  resist  us  by  the  truth  :  if  you,  then  let 
truth  convert  you.  Now,  you  hold  your  church  by  the 
tenure  of  a  robber's  castle,  out  of  which  you  sally  to 
depredate,  and  within  which  you  may  gather  the  spoil; 
whereas,  it  should  rather  be  a  city  without  walls, 
whither  all  may  come  at  pleasure,  but  fortified  within 
by  law  and  equity.  Doubtless,  we  have  some  attach- 
ment to  Protestantism,  and  must  be  allowed  to  have, 
till  you  offer  us  what  is  better.  That  it  is  a  great  ad- 
vance upon  Rome  we  are  quite  certain,  but  we  are  far 
from  regarding  it  as  a  perfect  thing.  It  gives  too 
many  signs  to  the  contrary.  How  indeed,  was  it  pos- 
sible for  Luther,  confronting  your  thunders  alone  and 
quailing  himself  every  hour  in  the  face  of  unknown 
perils,  to  settle,  in  so  great  want  of  tranquillity,  a 
perfect  system  of  truth  and  order  ?  Or  how  was  it  to 
be  expected  that  a  reformation  begun  by  sin  itself, 
like  that  of  England,  could  be  so  washed  b}^  the  care 
of  good  men  afterwards,  as  not  to  come  out  with  some 
bad  stains  upon  it,  whether  we  can  see  them  or  not  ? 
Equally  improbable  is  it  that  any  reform  has  taken 
place  in  a  church  so  badly  corrupted  as  yours,  with- 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  381 

out  bringing  truths  to  light  that  are  worthy  of  your 
study  and  adoption.  Accept  the  good,  reject  the  bad. 
The  results  you  cannot  use  as  models,  use  as  antag- 
onisms or  reactive  forces  to  steady  your  inquiries  after 
what  is  better  ;  for  this  is  a  help  not  insignificant.  At 
the  same  time,  it  is  not  to  be  questioned  that  if  you 
advance  beyond  us,  your  advances  will  accrue  to  our 
benefit,  and  assist  the  final  settlement  and  harmony 
of  the  world's  opinions.  Therefore  we  regret  the 
more  the  apparent  infatuation  that  urges  you  still  to 
cleave  to  your  infallibility,  and  continue,  in  despite  of 
the  frowns  of  the  age,  to  maintain  by  force  what  you 
dare  not  trust  to  argument ;  for  it  is  scarcely  possible 
that  some  political  intrigue,  in  which  your  friends 
may  betray  you,  some  fatal  outbreak  of  the  impatience 
of  Italy,  or  some  hostile  combination  from  without  in 
which  the  collected  odium  of  the  world  shall  pour  its 
vials  of  wrath  into  your  bosom,  will  not  ere  long  in- 
terrupt your  self-control,  and  tear  you  so  violently  as 
to  make  deliberation  imoossible.     Then  all  the  rich 

J. 

advantages  that  might  accrue  to  mankind,  through  a 
new  and  original  reformation  of  your  church,  are 
lost. 

It  is  a  remarkable  feature  of  this  age,  let  it  also  be 
observed,  that  your  religion  and  ours  are  becoming 
intermixed  as  never  before.  In  France,  the  Protestant 
interest  is  rising  daily.  In  the  United  States,  a  Cath- 
olic interest  is  increasing  by  emigration.  In  England, 
the  action  of  the  government  and  the  late  accessions 
you  have  gained  from  the  establishment  are  placing 


382  LETTER    TO    HIS    HOLINESS 

you  upon  a  more  even  footing.  In  Switzerland,  Ger- 
many and  the  Austrian  empire,  the  two  religions  have 
long  been  set  in  proximity.  Everywhere  their  repre- 
sentatives meet  each  other  face  to  face ;  they  inter- 
marry, they  are  fellow-citizens  of  the  same  state,  they 
controvert,  correspond,  reason  about  and  wdth  each 
other.  This  letter  to  you  is  only  a  sign  of  the  times. 
By  means  of  the  press,  you  are  henceforth  to  stand 
out  in  the  face  of  the  world  and  be  made  a  study, — 
which,  if  you  have  merits,  it  is  well ;  if  not,  then  it 
is  well.  What  now  we  want  is  to  have  this  intermix- 
ture in  Italy,  as  elsewhere,  as  we  certainly  know^  w^e 
shall  have  it,  and  that  soon.  Then,  after  that,  let  the 
ferment  go  on  throughout  the  mass.  If  it  be  uncom- 
fortable to  us  all,  still  let  it  go  on.  If  in  this  univer- 
sal interfusion  Protestantism  is  dissolved  by  Eoman- 
ism,  and  this  again  by  Protestantism  ;  then,  if  it  please 
God,  let  them  dissolve,  and  it  may  be  they  will  crys- 
tallize together.  I  w^ill  dare  to  trust  anything  to  truth. 
Whatever  cannot  stand  the  free  action  of  argument, 
let  it  fall ;  whatever  truth  will  modify,  let  it  be 
modified. 

We  ask  it  of  you,  then,  to  give  us  religious  liberty, 
that  is,  to  withdraw  force  as  an  instrument  of  relig- 
ious opinion.  And  what  has  God  been  teaching  you 
of  late,  but  to  feel  the  humanity  and  justice  of  this 
demand  ?  I  pretend  to  know  nothing  of  the  rumored 
persecutions  of  the  Polish  nuns,  save  that  you  and 
your  people  earnestly  believed  the  story.  And  what 
have   you  been  doing  but  filling  Christendom  with 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  383 

your  indignant  outcries  against  this  inhumanity  ?  And 
what  did  I  hear  from  your  priests  and  people  at  Rome, 
a  few  days  ago,  but  the  bitterest  imprecations  against 
the  Emperor  of  Russia,  then  present  in  the  city ;  im- 
precations, I  had  reason  to  believe,  that  drew  their 
bitterness  from  the  feeling  of  the  Vatican  ?  But  you 
need  to  beware  lest  the  righteous  impulses  of  nature 
in  your  bosoms  betray  you  into  hasty  concessions. 
For  if  it  is  good  for  Rome  to  employ  force  as  an  instru- 
ment of  religion,  why  not  for  Russia  ?  And  if  perse- 
cution is  so  ill  for  the  nuns  of  Minsk,  is  it  any  better 
for  the  fifteen  hundred  nuns  of  Rome,  should  they 
happen  at  some  future  day  to  renounce  your  church 
and  your  doctrine  ?  If  flogging  or  starvation  is  not 
good  discipline  for  the  opinions  in  Russia,  is  it  any 
better  in  Italy  ?  Does  the  virtue  or  validity  of  tor- 
ture depend  upon  the  latitude  ?  Better  is  it  ingen- 
uously to  adopt  the  conclusions  to  which  the  ready 
promptings  of  humanity  lead  you,  and  what  you  detest 
so  bitterly  in  others  for  ever  renounce  in  yourselves. 

I  have  heard  it  suggested  that  you  are  the  last  pope 
who  will  exercise  temporal  rule  in  Italy ;  that  the  civil 
powers  who  have  acted  as  your  guardians  are  so  much 
disappointed  and  chagrined  by  the  incurable  oppres- 
sion they  find  to  be  involved  in  a  priestly  government, 
as  to  have  decided  on  leaving  your  successor  a  spirit- 
ual jurisdiction  only.  I  know  not  what  authority 
there  may  be  in  this  rumor,  but  I  hope  for  the  honor 
of  religion  it  may  be  true.  But,  however  this  may 
be,  it  is   time  for  you   and  all  princes  to  consider, 


384  LETTER    TO     HIS     HOLINESS 

whether  the  melancholy  spectacle  of  divisions  and 
animosities  in  the  Christian  world  is  not  caused  by  a 
denial  of  the  rights  of  truth,  and  attempts  to  guard  by 
force  what  force  can  only  disturb.  Whether,  in 
short,  as  trade  has  laws  of  equilibrium  and  health, 
which  are  safest  in  their  action  when  they  act  freely  ; 
so  also  restrictions  of  force  in  the  arguments  and  faith 
of  men  do  not  create,  of  necessity,  false  repugnances, 
and  disturb  the  even  balance  of  their  opinions.  How 
shall  truth  even  hold  her  equilibrium,  when  it  is  not 
error  she  has  set  against  her,  but  force  ?  Emancipate 
the  truth  of  God,  and  it  will  be  wonderful  if  truth 
does  not  emancipate  us.  There  will  be  no  sudden 
violent  change  perhaps,  such  as  some  men  love  to  see, 
and  such  as  you  have  the  greatest  reason  to  fear,  in 
case  you  stand  by  your  infallibility  longer ;  but  error 
will  melt  away  in  the  sovereign  light  of  truth,  and  we 
shall  melt  together  into  the  love  of  a  conscious  broth- 
erhood. 

One  suggestion,  and  I  leave  you.  I  saw  in  the 
cathedral  at  Lyons,  as  I  passed  through  that  city,  a 
proclamation  of  the  archbishop,  calling  the  faithful  to 
pray  for  the  conversion  of  England  ;  and  I  have  since 
heard  of  a  like  summons  proclaimed  at  Rome,  and  in 
other  places,  even  as  far  distant  as  Constantinople. 
This,  I  said,  is  well ;  it  is  at  least  a  step  in  advance 
of  the  fulminations  that  were  smoking  through  the 
kingdoms,  on  a  former  day,  against  this  recusant  em- 
pire. I  only  suggest,  whether  it  would  not  have  been 
a  little  more  modest,  if  you  had  summoned  your  fol- 


POPE    GREGORY    XVI.  385 

lowers,  instead,  to  pray,  not  for  the  conversion  of 
England  to  your  opinion,  but  that  you  and  all  Christ- 
ians may  be  guided  into  the  truth,  wherever  it  is,  and 
there  embrace  each  other  in  a  durable  fraternity  ? 
Issue  now  this  for  your  proclamation.  Call  upon  the 
world  to  join  you,  and  I  will  answer  for  it  that  all  the 
recusant  millions,  who  roused  themselves  against  you 
in  the  days  of  Luther,  will  joyfully  meet  the  summons, 
and  a  spectacle  shall  be  offered,  at  which  the  world, 
and  possibly  other  worlds  may  gaze, — all  the  divided, 
clashing  hosts  of  Christendom  bowed  together  before 
God,  asking  for  the  truth  that  shall  end  their  disa- 
greements, and  make  them  one  forever. 

Pardon  me  now,  if  in  this  letter  I  have  inflicted  any 
unjust  wound  upon  your  peace,  or  spoken  aught  that 
savors  of  personal  malignity.  You  are  an  aged  man, 
waiting  on  the  shore,  and  will  probably  be  called  to 
pass  over  before  me.  If  I  would  not  have  you  go  to 
lay  up  accusations  against  me,  I  ought  as  earnestly  to 
hope  that  you  may  so  discharge  the  responsibility  laid 
upon  you  by  this  letter,  as  not  to  be  required  to 
accuse  yourself. 

Yours  in  the  truth, 

HORACE  BUSHNELL. 
London,  April  2, 1846. 


XII. 

CIEISTIAN    COMPEEHENSIVENESS.* 


We  are  not  among  those  who  regard  the  Christian 
sects  as  equivalent  to  so  many  schisms.  Neither  is  it 
necessary,  in  our  view,  to  the  unity  of  the  church 
that  it  should  be  politically  one ;  indeed  the  polity  of 
the  Anglican  establishment  and  that  of  the  American 
Episcopal  Church  are  as  truly  separate,  one  from  the 
other,  as  the  latter  from  the  Congregational  polity. 
As  little  is  it  necessary  to  the  unity  of  Christ's  body 
that  the  several  polities  should  be  similar  to  each 
other ;  for  here  again  it  can  be  shown,  beyond  a  reas- 
onable doubt,  that  the  polity  of  the  Anglican  establish- 
ment is  less  resembled,  as  regards  all  practical  pur- 
poses, to  that  of  the  American  Episcopal  Church, 
than  the  latter  to  the  Congregational.  So.if  we  speak 
of  brotherly  love  or  the  unity  of  the  Spirit,  it  is  clear 
that  distinct  and  dissimilar  forms  of  polity  work  no 
necessary  detriment.  How  often  indeed  is  it  proved 
that  proximity  exasperates  disagreements,  and  that 
men  will  only  hate  each  other  the  more  cordially,  the 

*  Originally  published  in  the  Neio  Englander  for  1848,  vol.  VI. 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         387 

closer  the  bond  which  unites  them !  Doubtless  there 
is  such  a  thing  as  schism,  divisions  that  are  wrought 
by  evil  passions,  therefore  dishonorable,  hurtful,  and 
criminal ;  and  such  is  the  weakness  of  our  nature  that 
there  are  doubtless  vestiges  of  schism  in  all  Christian 
bodies.  Still  it  is  our  privilege,  on  the  whole,  and 
being  our  privilege,  our  duty,  to  regard  the  Christian 
sects,  not  as  divisions,  but  as  distributions  rather ;  for 
it  is  one  of  the  highest  problems  of  divine  government 
in  the  church,  as  in  all  other  forms  of  society,  how  to 
effect  the  most  complete  and  happy  distribution, — 
such  a  distribution  as  will  meet  all  wants  and  condi- 
tions, content  the  longings,  pacify  the  diversities,  and 
edify  the  common  growth  of  all.  Thus  it  may  be  said 
that  the  present  distribution  of  the  church,  abating 
what  is  due  to  causes  that  are  criminal,  makes  it  more 
completely  one ;  just  as  an  army  set  off  into  compa- 
nies and  battalions,  some  trained  to  serve  as  infantry 
and  some  as  horse,  some  with  artillery  and  some  with 
the  rifle,  undergoing  each  a  form  of  exercise  and  dis- 
cipline peculiar  to  itself,  becomes  thereby  not  several 
and  distinct  armies,  but,  because  of  the  orderly  dis- 
tribution made,  a  more  complete  and  perfect  whole, 
and  in  the  field  an  engine  of  greater  power,  because 
it  unites  so  many  forms  of  action  and  bears  so  many 
sorts  of  armor. 

,  At  the  same  time,  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  this 
manifold  distribution  of  the  church  has  its  propriety 
in  causes  and  events  that  imply  a  crude  state,  or  a 
state  of  only  partial  development.     Therefore,  while 


388         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

we  do  not  regret  the  distribution,  or  proclaim  it  as  the 
public  shame  of  religion,  we  may  well  desire  a  riper 
state,  in  which  the  Christian  body  shall  coalesce  more 
perfectly  and  draw  itself  towards  a  more  comprehen- 
sive and  catholic  polity.  The  work  of  distribution 
and  redistribution  has  already  gone  far  enough,  as 
most  Christians  appear  to  suppose.  We  see,  indeed, 
that  unity  is  rising  now,  as  a  new  ideal,  upon  the 
Christian  world.  They  pray  for  a  closer  fellowship ; 
they  flock  together  from  the  ends  of  the  world  to  con- 
sult for  unity.  A  proper  and  true  catholic  church  is 
before  the  mind  as  an  object  of  longing  and  secret 
hope  as  never  before ;  it  is  named  in  distant  places 
and  by  men  who  have  had  no  concert,  save  through 
the  Spirit  of  God  and  the  spirit  of  the  age.  And  if 
these  are  signs  of  capacity  for  a  more  catholic  state, 
it  may  also  be  seen,  in  the  few  persons  rising  up  here 
and  there  to  speak  of  a  more  comprehensive  faith,  or 
to  handle  questions  of  polity  and  doctrine  in  a  more 
comprehensive  spirit,  that  there  are  powers  coming 
into  the  field  which  possibly  God  has  trained  for  the 
preparation  of  a  new  catholic  age.  Probably  never 
until  now  has  the  world  been  ready  to  conceive  the 
true  idea  of  a  comprehensive  Christianity.  Nor  is  it 
ready  now,  save  in  part.  The  idea  itself  is  yet  in  its 
twilight,  dimly  seen,  only  by  a  few, — by  none  save 
those  who  are  up  to  watch  for  the  morning. 

Our  object,  in  this  article,  is  to  say  what  we  are  able 
of  a  subject  formerly  so  remote  from  the  world.  We 
confess  that,  in  our  own  apprehension,  we  seem  rather 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         389 

to  stammer  than  to  speak  plainly.  Still,  as  it  is  by 
stammering  that  we  learn  to  speak,  we  go  to  our  rudi- 
mental  effort  suffering  no  pride  to  detain  us. 

What  we  mean  by  comprehensiveness,  or  a  compre- 
hensive Christianity,  may  be  illustrated  in  part  from 
the  manner  and  teachings  of  ,Christ  himself,  who  is 
the  Lord  of  Christianity.  In  nothing  did  Christ  prove 
his  superhuman  quality  more  convincingly  than  by 
the  comprehensiveness  of  his  spirit  and  his  doctrine. 
He  held  his  equilibrium,  flew  into  no  eccentricities, 
saved  what  was  valuable  in  what  he  destroyed, 
destroyed  nothing  where  it  was  desirable  rather  to 
fulfill  than  to  destroy.  It  is  the  common  infirmity 
of  mere  human  reformers  that,  when  they  rise  up  to 
cast  out  an  error,  it  is  generally  not  till  they  have 
kindled  their  passions  against  it.  If  they  begin  with 
reason,  they  are  commonly  moved,  in  the  last  degree, 
by  their  animosities  instead  of  reason.  And  as  ani- 
mosities are  blind,  they,  of  course,  see  nothing  to 
respect,  nothing  to  spare.  The  question  whether 
possibly  there  may  not  be  some  truth  or  good  in  the 
error  assailed,  which  is  needed  to  qualify  and  save  the 
equilibrium  of  their  own  opposing  truth,  is  not  once 
entertained.  Hence  it  is  that  men,  in  expelling  one 
error,  are  perpetually  thrusting  themselves  into 
another,  as  if  unwilling  or  unable  to  hold  more  than 
half  the  truth  at  once.  And  so  if  any  advance  be 
made,  it  is  wrought  out  between  battles  and  successive 
contraries,  in  which,  as  society  is  swayed  from  side  to 
side,  a  kind  of  irregular  and  desultory  progress  is 


390  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

maintained.  Thus  if  any  human  reformer  had  risen 
up  to  assail  the  tithings,  washings,  and  other  tedious 
observances  of  the  Pharisees,  observances  the  more 
easy  to  regard  as  odious  because  the  men  themselves 
were  odious, — a  sanctimonious  race  of  oppressors  and 
hypocrites,  who  live  by  farming  the  public  supersti- 
tions,— this  human  reformer  would  have  said :  "Away 
with  you  hypocrites,  and  away  with  your  works.  Let 
your  tithings  go,  and  if  you  will  do  any  thing  right, 
come  back  to  the  weightier  matters  of  judgment, 
mercy  and  faith."  This  Christ  did  not  say.  Detest- 
ing the  cruelties  and  base  hypocrisies  of  the  sect,  as  he 
certainly  did,  he  is  yet  able  to  see  some  benefit  in 
their  practices,  some  truth  in  their  opinions.  There- 
fore he  says  :  "  These  ought  ye  to  have  done,  and  not 
to  leave  the  other  undone  ; "  comprehending,  at  once, 
the  exact  and  the  free,  the  disciplinary  and  the  useful, 
offerings  to  God  and  labors  for  mankind.  And  the 
most  remarkable  feature  in  his  sermon  on  the  mount 
is  the  fact  that,  while  he  perfectly  transforms  the  old 
doctrines  and  laws,  he  yet  annihilates  nothing.  "  I 
came  not  to  destroy,  but  to  fulfill,  to  bring  spirit  to 
form,  to  extend  the  outward  law  to  the  inward  thought, 
to  fill  out  the  terms  of  knowledge  and  the  statutes  of 
duty,  but  to  suffer  no  jot  or  tittle  of  the  law  to  perish." 
It  is  by  this  singular  comprehensiveness  in  the  spirit 
of  Christ  that  the  grandeur  of  his  life  and  doctrine  is 
most  of  all  conspicuous.  For  by  this  it  was  that  he 
set  himself  in  advance,  most  clearly,  of  his  own  and 
of  all  subsequent  times.  .  With  men,  if  they  ever  attain 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.        391 

to  any  thing  of  a  comprehensive  aim,  it  is  only  in  what 
may  be  called  the  second  age  of  the  church  or  society, 
the  historical  and  critical  age.  In  the  first  age  they 
see  truth ;  in  the  second  they  consider  the  seeings  of 
others  and  their  import.  In  the  first  age  they  regard 
the  forms  of  truth  as  identical  with  truth  itself; 
therefore  they  stand  every  man  for  his  own  form, 
having  no  choice  but  to  live  and  die  by  it,  and  no 
thought,  perhaps,  but  to  make  others  live  or  die  by  it 
too.  But  in  the  second  age,  opinions  become  a  sub- 
ject of  comparison,  their  laws  are  inquired  after,  their 
forms  become  plastic,  and  are  seen  melting  into  each 
other.  Under  contrary  forms  are  found  common 
truths,  and  one  form  is  seen  to  be  the  complement  of 
another, — all  forms,  we  may  almost  say,  the  comple- 
ment of  all  others.  But  it  was  in  no  such  philosophic 
and  critical  method  that  Christ  attained  to  so  great 
comprehensiveness.  He  found  it  rather  in  the  native 
grandeur  of  his  own  spirit.  Speaking  not  as  a  critic, 
but  as  a  seer,  his  simple  seeing  placed  him  thousands 
of  years  in  advance  of  us,  under  all  the  lights  of  his- 
tory. We  seem  now  to  be  just  beginning  to  spell  out 
in  syllables,  and  by  a  laborious  criticism,  that  which 
Christ  seized  upon  as  an  original  intuition. 

But  we  must  enter,  if  possible,  into  the  more  inte- 
rior merits  of  our  subject.  It  was  given  out  a  few 
years  ago,  by  the  distinguished  French  philosopher, 
M.  Cousin,  that  there  are  in  philosophy  three  possible 
schools  of  opinions,  which  must  each  have  an  era  to 
itself :  one  that  begins  with  the  ideal,  or  absolute ;  a 


392         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

second  that  begins  with  the  empiric  or  conditional ;  a 
third  which  seeks  to  adjust  the  relations  of  the  two, 
producing  an  ideal-empiric,  or  as  he  would  call  it,  an 
eclectic  school.  Besides  these  three,  he  declares 
that  it  is  even  impossible  to  invent  another.  And  the 
latter  of  the  three  he  regards  as  the  ripe  school,  one 
that  will  contain  the  last  and  fully-matured  results  of 
philosophic  inquiry.  Now  as  human  life  lies- between 
the  infinite  and  the  finite,  as  regards  thought  and  the 
objects  of  thought,  having  contact  in  fact  with  both, 
there  is  certainly  a  show  of  truth  in  the  theory  offered. 
The  history  of  opinions  too  may  be  made,  without 
any  great  violence,  to  yield  it  a  complexion  of  favor. 
Still  it  is  easy  to  show  in  what  manner  other  and  more 
various  oppositions  may  arise,  and  how  they  may  be 
multiplied  almost  without  number.  They  are  in  fact 
so  multiplied,  both  in  philosophy  and  in  religious  doc- 
trine. 

Having  it  then  for  our  subject,  in  this  article,  to 
investigate,  as  far  as  we  are  able,  the  causes  out  of 
which  religious  oppositions  arise,  and  to  suggest  tlie 
true  remedy,  let  us,  first  of  all,  glance  at  the  methods 
in  which  the  Christian  world  fall  into  so  many  repug- 
nant attitudes. 

Doubtless  it  is  true,  in  part,  as  M.  Cousin  suggests, 
that  many  of  these  repugnances  are  due  to  the  fact 
that  the  material  of  thought  is  itself  divided 
between  what  is  absolute  or  ideal,  and  what  is  actual 
or  empirical ;  so  that  a  mind  viewing  any  subject 
partially,  that  is  from  one  pole,  is  likely  to  conflict 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  393 

with  one  viewing  it  from  the  other,  and  both  with  one 
who  endeavors  to  view  it  from  both  poles  at  once. 

But  there  are  divisions  or  repugnances,  that  are  due 
as  much  to  the  incompreliensihility  of  the  matter  of 
thought,  as  to  the  twofold  nature  of  its  contents. 
The  matter  of  thought  is  infinite  in  quantity,  as  well 
as  ideal  or  empirical  in  quality..  Hence  it  results 
that,  as  the  minds  of  men  are  finite,  they  can  only 
pull  at  the  hem  of  the  garment,  and  must  therefore  be 
expected  to  pull  in  different  ways,  accordingly  as  they 
fall  upon  the  hem  on  one  side  or  the  other.  For  as 
the  garment  is,  to  each,  nothing  but  the  hem  in  that 
part  where  he  has  hold  of  it,  he  is  likely  to  make  up 
his  sect  or  school  according  to  the  view  he  has.  But 
after  long  ages  of  debate,  wherein  every  part  of  the 
hem  is  brought  into  view,  then  it  is  possible  certainly 
for  any  disciple,  who  will  look  through  the  eyes  of  «ZZ, 
to  form  to  himself  some  view  of  it  that  is  broader  and 
more  comprehensive. 

Then  again  there  are  reasons  for  the  rise  of  repug- 
nant views  in  thought  and  religious  doctrine,  which 
lie  in  what  may  be  called  the  contents  of  persons. 
For  it  is  not  merely  the  contents  of  thought,  but  quite  ' 
as  much  the  contents  of  the  thinkers,  that  give  birth 
to  contrary  opinions  and  sects.  We  speak  here  of 
personal  temperament,  or  of  national  temperament, 
working  in  the  subject ;  of  that  which  history  has 
produced,  or  waits  to  have  produced ;  of  impulses, 
wants,  all  of  which  need  as  much  to  have  their  day 
and  be  tried,  as  the  subject-matter  of  thought  itself. 


394         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

For  example,  the  Pelagian  doctrine  of  will  or  self-suph 
porting  virtue,  and  the  Quaker  doctrine  of  quietism, 
may  arise,  in  no  small  degree,  from  varieties  of  per- 
sonal temperament.  And  since  temperament  is  as 
much  a  reality  as  thought  itself,  what  can  ever  display 
the  manifold  forms  of  a  perfect  and  complete  doc- 
trine, unless  temperament  also  is  allowed  to  have  its 
trial  ?  So  also  prelacy  was  produced  by  historic 
causes,  that  is,  by  impulses  and  sympathies  historically 
prepared.  So  also  of  independency  or  equality.  It 
was  something  in  the  convenience  of  political  power, 
or  private  ambition,  or  Christian  experience  that  pro- 
duced these  repugnant  methods  of  organization,  and 
set  them  in  conflict.  And  now,  since  they  are  both 
set  before  the  mind  as  exhibited  on  trial,  it  is  possible 
to  decide  with  greater  confidence  on  the  method  most 
congenial  to  the  Christian  scheme ;  perhaps  on  a 
method  that  combines  the  excellences  of  both. 

There  is  yet  one  more  source  of  repugnant  and  par- 
tial opinion,  which  is  quite  as  fruitful  as  the  others ; 
namely,  language.  No  matter  whether  we  speak  of 
philosophic  doctrine  or  of  that  which  is  derived  from 
revelation,  every  opinion  or  truth  must  come  into  the 
world  and  make  itself  known  under  the  terms  of  lan- 
guage. And  all  the  processes  of  ratiocination,  under 
which  opinions  are  generated,  are  processes  that  are 
contained  within  the  laws  of  language.  But  language 
can  not  convey  any  truth  whole,  or  by  a  literal  em- 
bodiment. It  can  only  show  it  on  one  side,  and  by  a 
figure.     Hence  a  great  many  shadows,  or  figures,  are 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         395 

necessary  to  represent  every  truth ;  and  hence  again, 
there  will  seem  to  be  a  kind  of  necessary  conflict 
between  the  statements  in  which  a  truth  is  expressed. 
One  statement  will  set  forth  a  given  truth  or  subject- 
matter  under  one  figure,  and  a  second  under  another, 
and  a  third  possibly  under  yet  another.  The  doctrine 
of  atonement,  for  example,  is  offered  in  Scripture 
under  a  great  variety  of  figures,  and  a  history  of  the 
doctrine  up  to  this  moment  consists,  in  a  great  degree, 
of  the  theologic  wars  of  these  figures  doing  battle  each 
for  the  supremacy.  For  as  soon  as  any  figure  of  truth 
is  taken  to  be  the  truth  itself,  and  set  up  to  govern  all 
the  reasons  of  the  subject  by  its  own  contents  as  a 
figure,  argument  itself  settles  into  cant,  and  cant  is 
enthroned  as  doctrine.  For  cant,  in  rigid  definition, 
is  the  perpetual  chanting  or  canting  of  some  phrase 
or  figure,  as  the  fixed  equivalent  of  a  truth.  And 
hence,  as  most  men  who  speculate,  both  in  philosophy 
and  religion,  are  not  fully  aware  of  the  power  of  words, 
or  how,  if  they  place  a  truth  under  one  word  in  dis- 
tinction from  another,  it  will  assuredly  run  them  into 
dogmas  that  are  only  partially  true,  successive  dogmas 
in  theology  or  philosophy  are  perpetually  coming  upon 
the  stage,  and  wearing  themselves  down  into  cant  to 
die, — in  which,  though  they  resemble  themselves  to 
the  swans,  it  is  yet  with  a  difference ;  for  the  swans 
only  sing  when  they  die,  but  these  sing  themselves  to 
death.  The  number  of  contrary  theories  that  may  be 
gathered  round  a  given  subject  is  limited,  of  course, 
only  by  the  number  of  figures  adjacent  to  it. 


396         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

Instead,  therefore,  of  the  single  cause  for  repug- 
nant, or  opposing  theories,  discovered  by  M.  Cousin, 
we  find  as  many  as  four  classes  of  causes ;  one  that 
lies  in  the  twofold  quality  of  the  contents  of  thought ; 
a  second  in  the  infinite  quantity  of  the  contents ;  a 
third  in  the  contents  of  persons,  including  society  and 
history  ;  a  fourth  in  the  containing  powers  of  lan- 
guage as  an  instrument  of  thought  and  speculation. 

On  the  whole,  it  does  not  appear  that  the  theory  of 
M.  Cousin  is  sufficient.  It  is  less  defective  as  relat- 
ing to  questions  of  philosophy  or  philosophic  systems, 
for  which  it  was  specially  intended,  but  it  is  defective 
even  here.  For  nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  the 
thoughts  and  speculations  of  men  are  shaped  by 
causes  which  do  not  lie  in  the  quality  of  the  subject- 
matter  of  thought.  Far  more  extensively  true  is  this 
in  matters  of  theology  or  revealed  religion,  where  so 
much  depends  on  questions  of  fact  or  interpretation, 
— questions  that  are  not  determinable  by  any  philo- 
sophic or  a  'priori  method.  Still  the  doctrine  he  ad- 
vances that  all  questions  of 'philosophy  lie  between 
two  poles  or  extremes  is  one  that  has  a  vast  and 
almost  universal  application.  So  also  of  his  doctrine 
that,  inasmuch  as  men  are  after  truth  and  not  after 
falsehood,  it  may  generally  be  assumed  that  under  all 
extremes  advanced  there  dwells  a  truth.  And  these 
will  hold  equally  well  in  matters  of  theology. 

Holding  this  view,  it  may  seem  to  follow  also,  as 
asserted  by  M.  Cousin,  that  there  can  arise  about  any 
subject  or  question  only  three  schools  of  opinion, — the 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         897 

schools  of  the  extremes,  and  a  third  school  which 
undertakes  to  settle  their  relation,  or  comprehend 
them  in  a  common  view.  And  perhaps  there  can  not 
in  any  legitimate  way.  Still  it  will  be  found  in  his- 
torical fact,  that  men  do  not  always  proceed  in  a 
legitimate  Avay.  Other  causes  act  upon  them  which 
do  not  lie  in  the  subject-matter  of  inquiry.  As  we 
see  them  in  actual  controversy,  they  describe  a  history 
which  may  be  well  enough  represented  by  the  five 
stages  or  modes  which  follow. 

First  comes  up  into  the  light  one  extreme  and,  with 
or  without  controversy,  it  is  adopted.  After  a  while  a 
second  school,  looking  the  dominant  opinion  or  prac- 
tice in  the  face,  begins  to  see  that  there  is  something 
wrong  or  false  in  it,  and  rises  up  as  an  assailant,  to 
assert  the  second  extreme.  Now  comes  the  war  be- 
tween extremes.  The  parties  are  certain,  both,  that 
they  have  the  truth.  They  regard  each  other  in  their 
present  half-seeing  state,  as  wholly  repugnant  and 
contrary.  The  war  goes  on  therefore,  as  a  war  be- 
tween simple  truth  and  falsehood,  which  no  terms  of 
peace  can  reconcile,  and  which  permits  no  issue  but 
one  of  life  or  death.  Probably  the  new  extreme  will 
prevail,  and  the  old  subside  into  a  secondary  place. 

]\Ieantime,  there  is  likely  to  appear  a  neutral  school, 
made  up  of  those  w^ho  are  disposed  to  peace,  and 
deprecate  war,  and  who  cannot  escape  the  feeling  that 
there  is  something  extravagant  or  excessive,  (as  there 
certainly  is,)  in  both  the  militant  schools.  These  are 
the  moderate  men  who  praise  moderate  things,  the 


398  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

woodeii-lieaded  school,  who  dread  nothing  with  so 
great  reason  as  a  combustion  of  any  sort.  Hence  it 
is  the  real  problem  with  them  to  divide  distances,  and 
settle  themselves  down  as  nearly  midway  between  the 
poles  as  possible.  Sometimes  they  are  called  in  deri- 
sion, ^'  men  of  the  fence,"  but  they  call  themselves,  and 
more  correctly,  neuters^  that  is,  neithers  ;  for  the  real 
study  and  problem  of  their  school  is  negative.  It  is 
not  to  find  the  truth  as  a  positive  form  and  law,  but 
it  is  simply  to  find  a  position  halfway  between  the  two 
schools  before  them, — to  be  about  as  much  and  about 
as  little  one  as  the  other.  They  are  prudent,  but  not 
wise.  They  make  a  show  of  candor,  without  so  much 
as  a  thought  of  the  truth.  But  as  men  grow  weary 
of  controversy,  and  the  passions  that  give  zest  to  it 
for  a  time  are  seen  to  die  out,  and  give  place  at  last 
to  a  sense  of  disgust ;  as  extremes  held  singly  are 
seen  moreover  to  bring  a  sense  of  defect  and  weari- 
ness by  themselves,  the  neutrals  are  very  likely  to  get 
their  turn  and  become  the  reigning  school.  The  pub- 
lic are  sick,  why  must  their  ears  be  stunned  by  the 
perpetual  din  of  controversy  ?  So  falling  into  the 
sick-list  of  neutrality,  one  after  another,  the  two 
schools  of  the  extremes  are  gradually  thinned  away 
and  seem  about  to  be  forgotten.  But  for  some  reason 
it  begins  at  length  to  be  felt  that  there  is  a  very  pe- 
culiar insipidity  in  this  neutral  state.  There  is  noth- 
ing sufficiently  positive  in  it  to  waken  a  resonant 
feeling  in  the  soul.  Plausibilities  have  taken  the 
place  of  truths,  and  the  diet  is  too  thin  to  feed  the 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         399 

blood.  After  spending  thus  a  whole  age  or  genera- 
tion midway  between  somewhere  and  nowhere,  or 
rather  between  two  somewheres,  they  begin  to  feel 
that  neutralities,  after  all,  are  more  sickening  than 
controversies,  and  they  are  willing,  possibly,  to  go 
back  and  resume  the  old  quarrel  of  the  extremes,  if 
it  is  only  for  the  health  of  the  exercise. 

There  is  also  what  is  sometimes  called  a  liberal 
school,  which  differs  widely  from  the  neutral,  as  hav- 
ing aims  of  a  more  generous  quality.  For  while  the 
timorous  neutral  is  engaged  to  settle  his  position  mid- 
way between  extremes,  the  liberal  is  extending  an 
equal  indulgence  to  both.  The  former  is  moved  by 
prudence  to  himself,  the  latter  by  charity  to  others. 
The  virtue  of  one  is  moderation,  that  of  the  other 
tolerance.  One  lets  go  the  truth  to  consult  distances, 
the  other  admits  that  possibly  we  are  all  too  distant 
from  the  truth  and  see  it  too  dimly  to  be  over  positive 
concerning  it.  Now  most  of  the  arguments  and 
motives  to  liberality  are  of  a  reasonable  and  generous 
quality,  and  where  the  liberal  spirit  is  connected  with  a 
rigid  and  earnest  devotion  to  truth,  it  is  a  condition 
of  health  to  itself  and  a  mark  of  respect  to  others. 
But  how  easy  is  it  to  be  indulgent  to  others,  if  first 
we  are  indifferent  to  the  truth!  And  if  liberality 
itself  is  made  to  be  the  virtue  and  hung  up  as  the  flag 
of  a  school,  it  is  very  sure  to  prove  itself,  ere  long,  to 
be  anything  but  a  virtue.  Or  if  still  it  be  called  by 
that  name,  it  will  show  itself  to  be  the  most  un- 
illuminated,  most  impotent  and  insipid  of  all  virtues. 


400         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

Having  no  creed,  in  fact,  save  that  other  men  shall  be 
welcome  to  theirs, — earnest  in  nothing  save  in  vindi- 
cating the  right  of  others  to  be  earnest,  counting  it 
charity  not  to  be  anxious  for  the  truth,  but  to  be 
patient  with  all  error,  smiling  indulgently  upon  all 
extremes,  not  caring  how  the  truth  n'lay  fare  between 
them, — the  liberal  school  makes  a  virtue  of  negation, 
and  freezes  itself  in  the  mild  and  gentle  temperature 
it  has  mistaken  for  charity.  The  word  liberal  is  in 
fact  a  negative  word ;  there  is  nothing  positive  in  it. 
And  as  words  are  powerful,  no  body  of  men,  however 
earnest  at  the  beginning,  can  long  rally  under  this 
word  as  a  flag,  without  making  it  a  sacrament  of 
indifference,  and  subsiding  thus  into  a  state  which 
involves  a  disrespect  to  all  the  sacred  rights  of  truth. 
But  as  life  cannot  long  be  endured  where  earnestness 
is  lost,  so  the  liberalist  will  begin,  ere  long,  to  feel  that 
his  supposed  charity  does  not  bless  him.  And  now 
he  will  gird  himself  again  for  war,  seize  upon  some 
post  and  fortify  it,  and  though  it  do  not  cover  a  half- 
acre  of  ground,  he  will  swear  to  die  fighting  for  some- 
thing as  better  than  posse'ssing  nothing. 

Having  now  the  schools  above-named  before  us: 
first  the  schools  of  the  extremes  with  their  wars  ; 
then  the  neutral  or  the  liberal  school  or  both,  succeed- 
ing and  bringing  in  an  age  of  dearth  that  cannot  longer 
be  supported  ;  we  may  see  how  a  fifth  school  rises  to 
complete  the  cycle  and  gather  unto  the  truth  her  own 
true  catholic  brotherhood.  There  rises  up  now  a  man, 
or  a  few  men,  who  looking  again  at  tlie  two  extreme 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         401 

schools,  begin  to  ask  whether  it  is  not  possible  to  com- 
prehend them  ;  that  is  to  receive,  hold,  practice  all 
which  made  the  extreme  opinions  true  to  their  disci- 
ples ?  The  very  thought  gives  compass  or  enlargement 
to  the  soul  in  which  it  is  conceived.  It  ascends,  as  it 
were,  to  a  higher  position  to  look  down  upon  the 
strifes  of  the  race  and  use  them  as  the  material  of 
its  exercise,  conveniences  to  its  own  final  establish- 
ment and  victory.  In  this  effort  to  comprehend  ex- 
tremes, it  offers  no  disrespect,  but  the  highest  respect 
rather,  to  the  great  and  earnest  spirits  that  have  stood 
for  the  truth  and  fought  her  battles,  giving  them  all 
credit  for  their  courage  and  devotion,  and  considering 
them,  in  fact,  as  the  right  and  left  wings  of  the  field 
which  it  now  remains  to  include  in  one  and  the  same 
army.  It  is  in  fact  a  disciple  of  the  extremes,  taking 
lessons  of  both,  and  ceasing  not  till  it  has  gotten 
whatever  good  and  whatever  truth  made  their  opin- 
ions sacred  to  themselves.  In  the  endeavor  to  com- 
prehend extremes,  it  comprehends  also  both  the  views 
of  the  neutral  and  the  liberal  schools.  The  neutral 
was  sure  that  there  was  some  extravagance,  some 
defect  of  equilibrium  in  the  extremes,  and  this  he 
thought  to  restore  by  dividing  distances  and  holding 
neither.  The  comprehensive  school  restores  it  by 
holding  both  and  bringing  both  to  qualify  and  moderate 
each  other.  The  liberal  saw  charity  perishing  in  the 
earnest  battle  of  the  extremes,  and  required  of  itself 
a  more  indulgent  spirit.  The  comprehensive  school 
finds  not  only  a  defect  of  charity,  but  what  is  more, 


402         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

a  real  ground  for  charity,  in  the  fact  that  both  ex- 
tremes are  only  standing  for  the  two  poles  of  truth  ; 
earnest  because  they  have  the  truth,  and  only  quarrel 
ing  because  they  have  not  breadth  enough  to  see  that 
they  are  one.  In  the  comprehensive  school  it  will  be 
a  first  conviction  that  all  serious,  earnest  men  have 
something  in  their  view  which  makes  it  truth  to  them ; 
therefore  that  all  serious,  earnest  men,  however  re- 
pugnant in  their  words,  have  yet  some  radical  agree- 
ment, and  if  the  place  can  be  found,  will  somewhere 
reveal  their  brotherhood.  Therefore  they  are  not  only 
to  tolerate,  but  to  love  and  respect  each  other.  Nay, 
they  are  each  to  ask,  what  has  the  other  which  is 
necessary  to  its  own  completeness  in  the  truth  ?  And 
thus  the  comprehensive  school,  finding  its  liberality  in 
the  higher  pursuit  of  the  truth,  will  have  it  not  as  a 
negation,  had  exercise  it  not  as  a  sacrament  of  indif- 
ference. It  will  be  moderate  without  pursuing  mod- 
eration, liberal  without  pursuing  liberality,  both  be- 
cause it  follows  after  the  truth,  giving  heed  to  all 
earnest  voices,  and  bowing  as  a  disciple  to  all  her 
champions. 

It  is  not  our  design,  in  giving  out  this  distribution 
'  of  schools,  to  place  them  all  upon  an  equal  footing. 
The  first  two  and  the  last,  the  two  extreme  or  parti- 
san schools  and  the  comprehensive  school  7nust  appear 
in  their  order ;  they  constitute  the  necessary  condi- 
tions of  mental  progress  in  the  truth,  and  truth  can 
not  find  a  complete  and  full  development  without 
them.     The  other  two,  the  neutral  and  the  liberal,  do 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         403 

appear  casually  or  incidentally,  and  often  hold  an 
important  figure  in  the  real  history  of  sects  and 
opinions,  and  no  sufficient  view  of  the  actual  history 
of  opinions  can  be  given  without  some  reference  to 
them.  They  may  both  be  regarded,  perhaps,  as 
spurious  modes  of  the  comprehensive  school,  actuated 
by  some  dim  and  undiscovered  sense  of  the  fact  that 
there  is,  doubtless,  a  higher,  broader  truth,  which,  if 
it  were  knov  n,  would  reveal  an  aspect  of  extrava- 
gance in  the  partisan  strifes  of  the  world.  In  this 
view,  they  may  be  looked  upon  as  rudimental  efforts 
preparatory  to  the  development  of  a  true  comprehen- 
siveness. And  therefore  the  proper  dignity  of  a  com- 
prehensive effort,  guided  by  intelligent  convictions 
and  fixed  laws  of  criticism,  could  not  appear  without 
some  notice  of  the  contrast  between  it  and  them. 

Having  it  for  our  design,  in  this  article,  to  recom- 
mend the  comprehensive  spirit  in  religion,  we  are 
tempted,  first  of  all,  to  speak  of  it  as  related  to 
character  itself  ;  for  this  is  the  radical  interest  of  the 
subject,  and  the  illustrations  we  may  offer  here  will 
be  familiar  to  all  our  readers,  even  to  those  who  are 
unexercised  in  the  higher  abstractions  of  theology. 

The  endeavor  to  comprehend  all  antagonisms  and 
hold  the  just  equilibrium  of  truth  is  the  highest  and 
most  ingenuous  that  a  human  soul  can  propose  ;  one 
that  God  only  can  perfectly  realize.  Yet  whosoever 
has  but  conceived  such  a  thought  gives  some  evidence 
therein  of  a  resemblance  to  God,  and  he  is,  according 
to  the  measure  of  his  success,  a  truly  great  character. 


404         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

A  comprehensive  character  is,. in  fact,  the  only  really 
great  character  possible  among  men.  And  being  that 
which  holds  the  fullest  agreement  and  sympathy 
with  God,  it  is  one,  we  are  persuaded,  that  is  specially 
valued  and  cherished  by  him.  We  shall  find  also  by 
inspection,  that  all  the  defective  modes  of  character 
in  Christian  men  are  due  to  the  fact  that  some 
partial,  or  partisan  view  of  duty  sways  their  demon- 
strations. Sometimes  one  extreme  is  held,  sometimes 
the  other,  and  accordingly  we  shall  see  that,  except- 
ing cases  where  there  is  a  fixed  design  to  brave  the 
laws  of  all  duty,  the  blemished  characters  go  in  pairs. 

Thus  one  man  abhors  all  prejudice,  testifies  against 
it  night  and  day,  places  all  his  guards  on  the  side 
opposite,  and  as  prejudgments  of  some  kind  are  the 
necessary  condition  of  all  judgments,  it  results,  of 
course,  that  he  falls  into  an  error  quite  as  hurtful  and 
more  weak,  ceasing  to  have  any  fixed  opinion,  or  to 
hold  manfully  any  truth  whatever.  Another,  seeing 
no  evil  but  in  a  change  of  opinions,  holds  his  opinions 
by  his  will  and  not  by  his  understanding.  And  as  no 
truth  can  penetrate  the  will,  he  becomes  a  stupid  and 
obstinate  bigot,  standing  for  truth  itself,  as  if  it  were 
no  better  than  falsehood. 

There  is  a  class  of  Christians  who  specially  abhor 
a  scrupulous  religion.  It  is  uncomfortable,  it  wears 
a  superstitious  look,  and  therefore  they  are  moved  to 
assert  their  dignity  by  venturing  out  occasionally  on 
acts  or  exhibitions  that  are  plainly  sinful.  And  then 
when  they  return  to  their  duty,  which  they  are  quite 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         405 

certain  finally  to  omit,  they  consent  to  obey  God,  not 
because  of  the  principle,  but  because  of  the  import- 
ance of  the  occasion  !  In  expelling  all  scruples,  they 
have  made  an  exile  of  their  consciences.  A  man  at 
the  other  extreme  will  have  it  for  his  religion  to  be 
exact  in  all  the  items  of  discipline,  and  will  become 
so  conscientious  about  mint,  anise,  and  cummin,  that 
no  conscience  will  be  left  for  judgment,  or  mercy,  or 
even  for  honesty. 

Some  persons  are  all  for  charity,  meaning  by  the 
term  a  spirit  of  allowance  towards  the  faults  and 
crimes  of  others.  Christ  they  say  commands  us  not 
to  judge  ;  but  they  do  not  observe  that  there  are  things 
which  we  can  see  without  judging  and  which,  as  they 
display  their  own  iniquity,  ought  ,to  be  condemned  in 
the  severest  terms  of  reprobation.  Charity  will  cover 
a  multitude  of  sins, — not  all.  The  dearest  and  truest 
charity  will  uncover  many.  Opposite  to  such,  we  have 
a  tribe  of  censorious  Christians-,  who  require  us  to  be 
bold  against  sin,  who  put  the  harshest  constructions 
on  all  conduct,  scorching  and  denouncing  as  surely  as 
they  speak.  If  they  could  not  find  some  sin  to  de- 
nounce, they  would  begin  to  have  a  poor  opinion  of 
their  own  piety.  These  could  not  even  understand 
the  Saviom%  when  he  says,  "  neither  do  I  condemn 
thee." 

Some  Christian  professors  are  so  particularly  pleased 
with  a  cheerful  spirit,  and  so  intent  on  being  cheerful 
Christians  themselves,  that  they  even  forget  to  be 
Christians  at  all.    They  are  light  enough,  free  enough; 


406         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

the  longitude  of  face  they  so  much  dread  is  effectually 
displaced.  Indeed  the  godly  life,  prayer,  sobriety 
itself,  are  all  too  sombre  for  their  kind  of  piety. 
Opposed  to  these  we  have  an  austere  school,  who 
object  to  all  kinds  of  relaxation,  and  have  even  some 
scruples  about  smiling.  A  hearty  laugh  is  an  act  of 
positive  ungodliness.  They  love  to  see  the  Christian 
serious  at  all  times.  Their  face  is  set  as  critically  as 
the  surveyor's  needle,  or  they  carry  it  as  nicely  as  they 
would  carry  a  full  vessel.  But  there  is  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  sourness  in  all  human  bosoms,  which  if  it  can 
not  be  respited  by  smiles,  becomes  an  active  leaven. 
The  face  that  was  first  serious  changes  to  a  vinegar 
aspect,  and  this  reacts  to  sour  the  sourness  of  nature, 
till  finally  it  will  be. found  that  the  once  amiable  per- 
son has  become  nervous,  acrid,  caustic,  and  thoroughly 
disagreeable. 

We  have  a  class  of  disciples  who  appear  to  sum  up 
all  duty  in  self-examination.  They  spend  their  lives 
in  examining  and  handling  themselves.  They  examine 
themselves  till  they  are  selfish,  and  extinguish  all  the 
evidences  for  which  they  look.  They  inspect  and 
handle  every  affection  till  they  have  killed  it,  and 
become  so  critical,  at  length,  that  no  feeling  of  the 
heart  will  dare  venture  out,  lest  it  should  not  be  able 
to  stand  scrutiny.  Another  class  have  it  for  a  maxim 
never  to  doubt  themselves.  "  Let  us  do  our  duty," 
they  say,  "  and  God  will  take  care  of  us."  So  they 
delve  on,  confident,  presumptuous,  ignorant  of  them- 
selves, guarded  against  no  infirmity.     But  they  might 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  407 

about  as  well  do  nothing  in  the  name  of  duty,  as  to  go 
on  with  a  spirit  so  ill  regulated,  and  if  they  knew  it, 
so  very  nearly  wicked. 

There  is  a  class  of  disciples  who  especially  love  pru- 
dence. It  is  the  cardinal  virtue.  They  dread,  of 
course,  all  manifestations  of  feeling,  which  is  the  same 
as  to  say  that  they  live  in  the  absence  of  feeling ;  for 
our  feelings  are  the  welling  up  of  the  soul's  waters,  the 
kindling  of  its  fires,  when  no  jealousy  is  awake  to  sup- 
press them.  If  they  are  watched,  they  retreat  to  their 
cell, — ^joy,  love,  hope,  pity,  fear, — a  silent,  timorous 
brood  that  dare  not  move.  The  prudential  man  be- 
comes thus  a  man  of  ice,  or,  since  the  soul  is  borne  up 
and  away  to  God  only  on  the  wings  of  feeling,  sinks 
into  a  state  of  dull  negation.  Then  we  have  another 
class  who  detest  the  trammels  of  prudence,  and  are 
never  in  their  element  save  when  they  are  rioting  in 
emotion.  But  as  the  capacity  of  feeling  is  limited,  it 
comes  to  pass  in  a  few  days  that  what  they  had  is 
wholly  burnt  to  a  cinder.  Then  as  they  have  a  side 
of  capacity  for  bad  feeling  still  left,  new  signs  will 
begin  to  appear.  As  the  raptures  abate  and  the  high 
symptoms  droop,  a  kind  of  despair  begins  to  lower,  a 
faint  chiding  also  is  heard,  then  a  loud  rail,  then  bit- 
ter deprecations  and  possibly  imprecations  too; 
charges  are  leveled  at  individuals,  arrows  are  sliot  at 
the  mark,  and  the  volcanic  eructations  thrown  up  at 
the  sky  are  proofs  visible  and  audible  of  the  fierce  and 
devilish  heat  that  rages  within.  This  is  fanaticism,  a 
malicious  piety,  kindling  its  wrath  by  prayer  and  holy 
rites. 


408         CHRISTIAN    COMPKEHENSIVENESS. 

Ill  these  examples  we  have  brought  into  view  ex- 
tremes that  are  furnished  principally  out  of  the  con- 
tents of  persons.  How  manifest  is  it  that  each  of 
these  extremes,  embracing  its  opposite,  would  rest  in 
a  balanced  equilibrium  on  the  two  poles  of  duty,  and 
be  itself  the  wiser  and  the  holier  for  that  which  is  now 
its  mischief  and  its  overthrow ! 

There  are  other  classes  of  extremes  affecting  the 
character,  which  are  more  speculative  in  their  nature. 
What  endless  wars  have  we  between  the  school  of 
reason  and  the  school  of  faith.  But  the  truly  enlarged 
disciple  will  somehow  manage  to  comprehend  both, 
considering  it  to  be  the  highest  reason  to  believe,  and 
the  highest  faith  to  reason.  One  man  places  virtue  in 
action,  another  in  feeling.  Possibly  it  is  in  a  moral 
standing  of  the  soul  to  which  it  ascends  between 
both, — action  inspired  by  feeling,  feeling  realized  by 
action, — thus  in  the  moral  liberty  of  the  whole  man. 
One  class  consider  Christian  piety  to  be  a  Godward 
and  devotional  habit.  Another  class  are  equally  sure 
that  God  is  pleased  with  us  when  we  do  our  duties  to 
our  fellow-men.  Thus  we  have  pietism  or  quietism 
on  one  side,  and  philanthropy  on  the  other.  But  the 
comprehensive  word  commands  us  to  do  justly,  to  love 
mercy,  and  to  walk  humbly  with  God ;  to  love  God 
and  through  him  love  our  brother,  to  love  our  brother 
and  to  see  therein  that  we  love  God.  Some  are 
justified  by  faith,  some  by  works.  But  as  faith  with- 
out works  is  dead,  and  works  without  faith  are  equally 
so,  there  are  some  who  prefer  to  show  their  faith  by 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         409 

their  works,  and  quicken  their  works  by  faith,  and 
thus  to  be  alive  in  both.  There  is  also  a  school  of 
legalists,  and  a  school  of  spiritualists.  The  former 
live  without  liberty,  the  latter  without  law.  But  the 
true  Christian  soul  is  free  in  the  law ;  for  it  is  the  art 
of  love  to  hold  a  soul  under  discipline,  and  beguile  it 
still  of  all  sense  of  constraint.  Some  resolve  all  duty 
into  self-interest.  Others  are  equally  sure  that  all  self- 
interest  is  criminal.  Possibly  self-interest  may  offer 
motives  that  will  bring  the  soul  up  unto  God  and  pre- 
pare it  to  such  thoughts  that  it  will  freely  love  God 
and  duty  for  their  own  sake,  and  thus  go  above  self- 
interest.  So  one  person  is  for  experience,  another  for 
habits ;  one  for  sentiments,  another  for  principles. 
But  God  is  comprehensive,  working  all  in  all,  only  by 
diverse  operations.  A  large  body  of  Christians  insist 
on  a  perfectly  uniform  exercise  in  religion.  Anotlier 
body  are  for  new  scenes  and  high  demonstrations. 
But  God,  consulting  both  for  uniformity  and  diversity, 
perfers  to  bring  us  on  towards  one  by  means  of  the 
other. 

So  in  all  the  possible  views  or  aspects  of  Christian 
character,  you  will  come  nearest  to  what  is  great  and 
Christlike,  if  you  seek  to  unite  whatever  repugnant 
extremes  are  before  you, — to  be  modest  and  yet  bold  ; 
conciliatory  and  yet  inflexible ;  patient  in  suffering, 
sharp  in  rebuke :  deferential  to  all  men,  independent 
of  all ;  charitable  towards  the  erring,  severe  against 
the  error ;  at  once  gentle  and  rigid,  catholic  and  ex- 
clusive, all  things  to  all  men,  and  one  thing  only  to 


410         CHRISTIAN     COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

yourself.  The  more  numerous  and  repugnant  the 
extremes  of  character,  excepting  those  which  are  sin- 
ful, vou  are  able  to  unite  in  one  comprehensive  and 
harmonious  vhole,  the  more  finished  and  complete 
your  character  will  be. 

We  have  dwelt  thus  largely  on  illustrations  derived 
from  the  department  of  practical  character,  because 
the  tendency  of  mankind  to  assume  opposite  poles  or 
extremes  is  here  so  conspicuous,  and  a  matter  so  fa- 
miliar to  observation.  Our  design  is  to  get  color,  in 
this  matter,  for  the  more  difficult  branch  of  our  sub- 
ject yet  remaining.  Man  is  not  one  being  in  the 
practical  life,  and  another  in  the  intellectual  or  specu- 
lative. Indeed  there  is  no  precise  line  of  distinction 
between  matters  of  practice  and  matters  of  opinion ; 
for  practice  molds  opinion,  and  opinion  practice. 
And  it  will  be  found  that  in  all  the  contrarieties  of 
character  just  set  forth,  the  contrariety  observed  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  character  and  duty  are  seen  at 
opposite  poles,  and  shaped  in  this  mamier  by  opposite 
opinions. 

Passing  on  now  to  matters  of  faith  and  doctrine, 
we  shall  see  the  same  only  more  distinctly.  And  as 
all  the  extremes  of  practice  go  by  pairs,  so  we  shall 
find  that  sects  and  dogmas  are  set  off  in  pairs  about 
given  points,  and  fighting  each  for  its  own  opinion  or 
pole,  and  thus  that  all  the  Christian  sects  stand  to 
represent,  in  some  sense,  all  the  Christian  truths. 
Which,  if  we  can  manage  to  comprehend,  as  we  know 
they  are  acknowledged  and  comprehended  by  Christ  in 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         411 

the  unity  of  his  own  body,  then  we  shall  complete 
ourselves  in  Christian  doctrine,  and  realize  the  idea 
of  a  true  Christian  catholicity. 

We  do  not,  of  course,  maintain  that  there  is  no 
error  in  the  Christian  sects.  A  want  of  catholicity 
or  comprehensiveness  is  itself  error.  To  see  any 
thing  partially,  or  at  one  pole,  is  to  see  it  insufficiently, 
thus  in  defective  forms  and  proportions.  Thus  all 
sects  and  schools  hold  mixtures  of  error  created  by 
only  half  seeing  what  they  see.  Besides  they  are  all 
instigated,  in  part,  by  evil  passions  and  blinded  by 
false  prejudices,  so  that  they  not  only  fall  into  error 
by  half  seeing,  but  sometimes  by  wrong  seeing  also. 
Still  it  will  generally  be  found,  if  we  set  ourselves  to 
a  careful  scrutiny  of  the  tenet  or  opinion  which  is 
distinctive  in  a  given  sect  or  school,  that  there  is 
some  real  truth  in  it,  however  repugnant  at  first  view 
to  us  ;  something  which  makes  it  true  to  the  school, 
and  the  school  earnest  in  maintaining  it.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  too,  we  have  almost  never  seen  a  dogma 
advanced  by  any  body  of  men,  however  monstrous, 
which,  if  it  were  dissolved  and  viewed  in  its  contents 
historically,  would  not  yield  some  important  truth. 

Thus  among  the  first  efforts  of  the  church  to  frame 
a  doctrine  of  atonement,  the  death  of  Christ  is  often 
represented,  and  especially  by  Irenaeus  and  Origen,  as 
as  a  ransom  paid  to  the  devil.  No  representation 
probably  could  be  more  abhorrent,  when  taken  on  its 
face,  to  the  feelings  of  all  modern  Christians.  But 
if  we  can  have  patience  to  withhold  our   judgment 


412         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

long  enough  to  take  down  the  drapery  of  the  lan- 
guage, or  dissolve  its  figures,  thus  to  separate  the  real 
truth  of  feeling  they  may  have  received,  under  a  form 
of  dogma  so  abhorrent  to  our  speculative  views  of 
the  subject ;  in  a  word,  if  we  can  accurately  conceive 
their  historic  state  of  mind,  when  advancing  this  rude 
theory  of  atonement,  the  first  which  unilluminated 
reason  had  produced,  we  shall  find  no  difficulty  in 
allowing  that  they  held  a  warm  and  living  truth, 
under  a  form  so  badly  misshapen. 

No  doctrine  is  sooner  rejected,  or  more  derided  for 
its  absurdity,  than  the  doctrine  of  the  real  presence. 
But  when  taken  with  all  the  negations  added  in  re- 
gard to  the  sensible  form  of  the  elements  in  the  sup- 
per, it  would  be  difficult  to  show  that  anything  more 
is  left  than  what  every  believing  Christian  ought  to 
admit,  viz.,  that  the  recipient  of  the  supper  is  to  meet 
therein  a  grace  which  is  above  sensation,  and  feast 
himself  in  the  participation  of  the  divine  nature. 
Out  of  this  great  truth  of  the  presence  passing  into  a 
human  philosophy,  the  doctrine  of  transubstantiation, 
and  of  a  sacrifice,  probably  grew.  The  injuriousness 
of  the  doctrine  is  due,  not  to  the  fact  that  it  contains 
no  truth,  but  to  the  fact  rather,  that  the  disciple  is 
likely  to  be  confused  and  astounded  as  before  a  mira- 
cle wrought  by  the  priest,  and  thus  to  miss  of  the  truth. 
The  exaggeration  or  over-statement  smothers  the 
truth  contained.  Meantime,  is  it  not  also  possible, 
that  the  Protestant  often  misses  the  same  truth  under 
the  doctrine  of  Zwingle  ?    He  comes,  we  will  suppose, 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         413 

to  do  an  act,  to  use  a  symbol  that  will  assist  him  to 
remember  his  Lord  ?  But  if  he  is  wholly  occupied 
with  his  own  act,  there  is  no  communion.  He  is  only 
magnetizing  himself.  Communion  implies  reciprocity; 
and  if  he  may  not  and  does  not  receive  the  real  Christ, 
there  is  no  reciprocity.  If  therefore,  Christ  does  not 
offer  himself  there  to  be  received  by  a  presence  above 
sensation,  or  if  the  disciple  does  not  believe  it,  then 
he  is  blinded  by  his  rationalism  as  the  Romanist  by 
his  superstition.  Two  things  are  necessary  to  the 
Christian  idea  of  the  supper.  An  act  of  reception 
which  is  an  act  of  faith,  and  a  matter  to  be  received 
which  is  a  matter  offered  to  faith.  If  the  Homanist 
omits  the  faith,  how  often,  both  in  practice  and  also 
in  theory,  does  the  Protestant  omit  the  matter  of 
faith!  When  both  poles  are  united,  when  Christ  the 
matter  of  faith  is  offered  to  faith,  and  faith  receives 
the  matter  offered,  then  is  the  Lord's  body  discerned. 
The  Quaker  doctrine  of  an  inner  light,  however 
derided,  contains  a  great  and  sublime  truth.  And  if 
it  be  taken  as  antagonistic  to  the  doctrine  that  all 
true  knowledge  is  derivable  to  the  soul  through  sense, 
whether  as  occupied  with  nature,  or  instructed  by 
revelation,  it  might  be  difficult  to  say  which  is  nearer 
to  the  truth.  If  one  nullifies  the  word,  the  other 
nullifies  the  soul  as  the  candle  of  the  Lord.  If 
the  world  is  dark  without  Christ,  so  if  the  light  that 
is  in  us  be  darkness,  how  great  is  that  darkness, 
even  having  Christ  before  us!  Without  the  inner 
light  revelation  cannot  certify  its  truth ;  for  there  is 


414         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

nothing  in  the  soul  to  measure  and  discriminate  truth. 
Without  revelation  visiting  the  soul  from  without,  or 
through  the  senses  and  the  understanding,  the  inner 
light  of  conscience  and  reason  is  provoked  to  no  dis- 
tinct announcement  of  itself.  There  is  a  divine 
Word  in  the  soul's  own  nature,  but  it  shine th  in  dark- 
ness and  is  not  comprehended  till  the  Word  becomes 
flesh  and  is  represented  historically  without.  And 
even  then  the  natural  man  discerneth  not  the  things 
of  the  Spirit,  until  the  inner  life  of  the  soul  is  quick- 
ened to  perceptiveness  by  the  inbreathing  of  God.  The 
Quaker  and  the  Scripturalist  therefore  are  both  right 
and  both  wrong  ;  right  in  what  they  assert,  wrong  in 
what  they  deny.  Unite  the  positive  contents  of  both, 
and  we  have  the  Christian  doctrine. 

The  same  may  be  said,  in  substance,  regarding  the 
Absolute  Religion  of  Theodore  Parker  ;  for  this  is  only 
a  modified  Quakerism,  a  Quakerism  whose  inspiration 
lies  in  natural  ideas  and  instincts,  and  not,  to  any 
extent,  in  spiritual  gifts.  Nor  is  any  thing  more  true 
than  that  the  soul  is  constituted  for  religion,  much  as 
he  has  represented.  It  is  a  great  and  divine  truth 
also,  one  that  revelation  itself  presupposes  and  actu- 
ally affirms.  But  if  Mr.  Parker  had  taken  pains  to 
inquire  why  God  has  set  us  in  a  sphere  of  sensation 
amid  objects  of  knowledge  and  scenes  of  experience, 
why  he  did  not  make  us  mere  absolutes  ourselves  in  a 
world  of  geometries  and  bare  intellectualities,  he  might 
have  been  led  to  suspect  that  the  same  reasons 
which  determined  to  this,  might  require  also  historic 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         415 

revelations  and  even  miracles.  For  if  it  be  needful  to 
live  in  a  phenomenal  world,  if  the  absolutes  of  the 
soul  are  nothing  worth,  until  they  are  brought  forth 
into  actual  discourse,  and  represented  and  mirrored  in 
the  objects  and  scenes  of  experience ;  if  seeing  and 
hearing,  trial  and  work,  are  wanted  to  assist  the  abso- 
lute religion,  why  may  not  a  Divine  Word  in  the  flesh 
be  as  needful  as  a  Divine  Word  in  the  world  ?  At  the 
same  time,  Mr.  Parker  is  not  to  be  answered  by  deny- 
ing the  religious  nature  of  the  soul.  If  the  soul  were 
not  a  religious  nature,  the  historic  Word  would  be 
worthless  ;  and  so,  without  the  historic  Word,  the  reli- 
gious nature,  as  a  glance  at  the  nations  of  mankind 
abundantly  shows,  will  only  baffle  itself  in  its  sins  and 
become  a  blinded  and  bewildered  instinct. 

Many  persons  are  inexpressibly  shocked  by  the  Cal- 
vinistic  dogma  of  unconditional  election  and  reproba- 
tion, or  of  absolute  decrees.  But  if  they  could  sus- 
pend their  mind  long  enough  to  sound  its  depths  and 
measure  its  real  contents,  they  would  find  a  great 
and  holy  truth  enveloped  in  it,  one  that  is  even  funda- 
mental to  God's  empire,  and  necessary  to  the  highest 
power  of  his  government  over  souls,  the  same  which 
has  given  to  Calvinism  a  religious  energy  so  peculiar. 
If  it  be  understood  that  God  enters  into  the  actual 
historical  world  of  men  to  pick  out,  unconditionally, 
one  for  life  and  another  for  death,  there  is  abundant 
reason  to  be  shocked  by  such  a  doctrine.  But  if  we 
go  above  the  actual  to  contemplate  God  before  the 
foundation  of  the  world,  as  dealing  with  intelligibles, 


416         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

or  possibles,  perusing  systems  of  possibles,  fore-know- 
ing them  and  their  contents,  not  as  actual,  or  histori- 
cal, but  as  intelligible ;  then  instituting,  or  by  a  fiat  of 
will  actualizing  the  best  and  wisest,  we  shall  see  that, 
in  putting  that  best  system  on  foot,  he  has  made  it 
certain  that  all  the  contents  of  the  system  will  emerge 
historically  in  due  time.  He  has  done  it  by  an  abso- 
lute unconditional  decree ;  for  if  he  had  not  put  the 
system  on  foot,  nothing  in  it  would  ever  become  a  his- 
torical fact.  And  having  done  so,  every  thing  in  it 
will,  and  he  will  not  be  disappointed.  What  he  saw 
in  the  intelligible  will  emerge  in  the  historical,  exactly 
as  he  saw  it.  But  not  so  as  to  exclude  conditions  in 
the  actual.  For  the  intelligible  system  he  selected 
was  a  system  linked  together  by  innimierable  causes 
and  relations ;  comprising  activities  to  be  exerted  by 
himself,  laws  pronounced,  works  of  grace  performed, 
acts  and  choices  of  the  subjects  as  they,  in  their  own 
freedom  or  self -activity,  would  determine ;  results  of 
character  and  destiny,  such  as  his  own  good  activity, 
and  theirs,  both  good  and  evil,  would  produce.  And 
here  is  the  great  truth  of  Calvinism.  Having  this  in- 
telligible system  before  him,  with  all  its  ingredients, 
conditions,  and  results,  God  by  an  absolute  decree  in- 
stitutes the  system ;  which  is  the  same  as  to  say  that 
whatsoever  it  contains  will  come  to  pass, — come  to  pass, 
that  is,  under  the  conditions,  so  as  not  to  infringe  upon 
the  responsibility  of  any  subject,  and  so  as  to  justify 
him  and  his  2:oodness  in  all.  In  this  2:rand  truth  of 
Calvinism,  God's  will  becomes  a  reality.  The  world 
is  felt  to  be  in  his  hands.     He  asks  no  leave  to  reign. 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  417 

He  reigns  not  blindly,  or  as  a  being  baffled  by  un- 
known contingencies.  Trembling  before  his  sover- 
eignty, we  find  it  still  a  benign  sovereignty,  a  rock  of 
confidence  and  love.  Unable  to  ascend  above  the 
actual  and  historical,  the  Arminian  sees  no  other  way 
to  save  the  conditions  of  freedom  and  just  responsi- 
bility, but  to  deny  a  truth  so  essential  to  God's  gov- 
ernment. Probably  the  Calvinist,  equally  unable  to 
get  above  the  actual,  asserts  his  doctrine  of  divine 
will  and  unconditional  decrees,  as  holding  under  and 
within  the  sphere  of  actual  history.  One  destroys  the 
government  of  God,  the  other  makes  him  a  tyrant. 
And  yet  they  are  both  asserting  great  and  fundamen- 
tal truths.  Unite  the  Arminian  and  the  Calvinist, 
comprehend  both  doctrines,  and  we  have  the  Christian 
truth. 

In  these  illustrations,  it  has  been  our  object  to  show 
that,  in  dogmas  regarded  with  the  utmost  repugnance, 
there  is  generally  to  be  found  some  important  truth, 
if  only  we  have  patience  to  look  for  it.  In  the  same 
illustrations,  we  have* also  advanced  the  general  pur- 
pose we  have  in  hand,  viz.,  to  show  that  all  the  Christ- 
ian truths  stand  in  opposites,  or  extremes  that  need 
to  be  comprehended.  That  something  of  this  kind  is 
true  in  matters  of  natural  science  is  known  to  all. 
In  the  astronomic  forces,  in  the  chemical  resolution  of 
substances,  in  light  and  electricity,  we  discover  nature 
lying  between  her  poles,  and  science  becoming  a  doc- 
trine when  it  comprehends  them  both.  And  in  this, 
we  have  only  a  symbol  of  what  relates  to  mind  and 
spirit,  the  doctrine  of  man  and  the  doctrine  of  God. 


418         CHRISTIAN     COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

Accordingly,  the  first  thing  to  be  done  in  theology 
is  to  reveal  the  poles,  or  the  repugnant  forms  of  truth. 
In  all  matters  of  moral  judgment  or  intellectual  opin- 
ion, there  must  be  something  in  the  nature  of  contro- 
versy to  prepare  the  way.  The  elements  to  be  com- 
bined or  comprehended  will  thus  be  brought  to  light, 
and  set  up  as  distinct  objects  of  contemplation.  Then 
the  man  or  the  teacher  that  follows,  holding  himself 
aloof  from  the  controversy,  and  looking  calmly  on  as 
a  spectator  to  ask,  what  do  these  combatants  mean  ? 
what  great  truth  have  they  each  in  mind  for  which 
they  are  doing  battle  ?  will  almost  uniformly  find  that 
they  have  one,  which  is  some  how  reconcilable  with 
the  opposite.  Accordingly,  there  is  no  one  who  has 
so  great  advantage,  in  arriving  at  the  truth,  as  he  who 
follows  after  a  controversy,  if  only  he  has  the  inde- 
pendence of  mind,  and  the  implicit  love  of  truth, 
necessary  to  improve  his  position. 

Our  churches,  for  example,  have  been  recently 
agitated  by  a  warm  and  earnest  controversy  in  refer- 
ence to  the  doctrine  of  spiritual  regeneration.  Ask 
what  the  antagonist  parties  are  after,  and  it  will  be 
found  that  one  is  after  the  truth  of  divine  agency  and 
spiritual  dependence,  the  other  after  the  liberty  and 
responsibility  of  the  subject.  In  this  case  neither  of 
the  parties  intends  to  deny  what  the  other  really 
wishes  to  maintain.  Both  assert  our  dependence, 
both  our  ability ;  but  one  a  dependence  which  to  the 
other  destroys  all  ability  ;  one  an  ability  which  to  the 
other  destroys  all  dependence.     Never  was  there  a 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         419 

better  opportunity  to  settle  the  true  comprehensive 
doctrine  on  this  difficult  subject,  than  w  hen  such  a 
controversy  going  before  has  set  up  in  full  view  the 
antagonistic  elements  to  be  united.  But  if  we  are  to 
use  the  advantage  offered,  we  must  not  be  in  haste  to 
enroll  ourselves  as  disciples  or  partisans.  We  must 
ascend  to  a  higher  and  calmer  position,  where  we  may 
see  at  once  all  the  material  offered  us,  and  use  it  as 
material  to  be  comprehended  in  a  single  view  or  doc- 
trine. Then  possibly  we  may  find  that  a  soul  under 
the  bondage  of  evil  is  able  to  renew  himself  in  good  in 
and  through  dependence,  able  to  work  because  God 
worketh  in  him.  It  will  not  be  said  that  he  has  a 
natural  ability  which  means  nothing,  nor  a  natural 
ability  which  means  that  he  can  do  all  by  himself.  It 
will  not  be  found  that  God  must  dispense  an  ictic  grace 
hefore  he  can  put  forth  any  right  motion,  which  ab- 
solves the  sinner  from  any  attempt ;  nor  that  he  can 
regenerate  himself,  and  is  dependent  on  God  only  by 
consent  or  courtesy.  But  it  will  be  seen  that  he  can 
do  nothing  out  of  God,  any  thing  in  God. 

In  the  great  question  put  in  issue  by  the  Unitarians 
concerning  the  Trinity,  or  the  nature  of  God,  it  is 
difficult  in  a  single  paragraph  to  indicate  the  true 
comprehensive  doctrine.  But  we  are  ready  to  express 
our  firm  conviction  that  the  Unitarians  will  not  be 
found  to  have  stood  forth  in  the  maintenance  of  a 
pure  error,  when  insisting  on  the  strict  unity  of  God. 
There  was  a  kind  of  Tiinity  maintained,  and  still  is 
by  many,  which  amounts  to  a  practical  triplicity,  and 


420  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

breeds  a  mental  confusion  in  the  worshiper,  that  is 
both  painful  and  hurtful.  For  this  there  was  no  remedy 
but  to  assert  the  absolute  unity  of  the  divine  nature, 
and  the  position  here  assumed  is  impregnable.  Xo 
doctrine  of  Trinity  that  infringes  upon  this  can  ever  be 
maintained.  Does  it  therefore  follow,  since  God  is 
one,  that  there  is  no  conceivable  tripersonality  which 
can  be  vindicated  ?  Others  may  thus  judge,  but  for 
ourselves  we  have  no  difficulty  in  perceiving  either 
the  meaning  or  the  practical  need  of  such  a  doctrine. 
For  if  there  be  a  practical  confusion  in  the  triplicity 
held  by  many,  there  is  a  practical  impotence  in  the 
bald  philosophic  unity  and  its  representations,  when 
rigidly  adhered  to,  that  is  even  more  injurious  to  the 
life  of  religion.  While  our  Unitarian  friends,  there- 
fore, are  reposing  in  all  confidence  on  their  impregna- 
ble doctrine  of  the  divine  unity,  it  becomes  them  to 
remember  that  if  they  are  not  reasoned  out  of  it  they 
may  yet  be  frozen  out,  which  is  quite  as  bad.  For 
Avithout  a  Trinity  subjective  to  us  and  filling  the  forms 
of  the  mind,  God  is  necessarily  distant,  unconversable, 
and  without  any  adequate  warmth  to  sustain  our  re- 
ligious vitality.  Of  this  we  feel  quite  as  sure  as  we 
do  of  God's  objective  unity.  If  in  saying  this  we 
seem  to  speak  enigmatically,  it  is  all  we  can  say  at 
present.  We  only  express,  in  addition,  our  confident 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  a  doctrine  that  shall  com- 
prehend all  which  the  Christian  world,  on  both  sides 
of  this  great  question,  are  contending  for.  For  it 
would  be  singular,  a  philosophic  anomaly  passing  be- 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         421 

lief,  that  all  Christendom  should  have  been  standing 
for  so  many  centuries,  for  that  which,  after  all,  is  a 
pure  phantasm,  or  hallucination.  It  is  not  in  mankind 
to  go  after  naked  error  in  this  way.  Even  when  they 
stumble  worst,  it  will  be  found  that  they  have  yet 
some  semblance  of  truth. 

In  the  question  of  old  and  new,  perpetually  recurring 
in  matters  of  religion,  we  have  the  bigot  on  one  side 
asserting  that  nothing  may  be  new,  and  the  radical  on 
the  other,  that  nothing  shall  be  old.  And  if  Chris- 
tianity be  a  vital  power  in  the  church,  both  are  true  ; 
for  the  new  must  be  the  birth  of  the  old,  and  the  old 
must  have  its  births,  or  die.  The  future  must  be  of 
the  past,  and  the  past  must  create  a  future.  And 
which  is  more  violent,  to  make  a  future  identical  with 
the  past,  or  to  make  a  future  separate  from  the  past, 
it  may  be  difficult  to  say.  We  shall  commonly  settle 
on  the  right  view,  when  we  have  schooled  down  the 
bigot  and  the  radical,  and  compelled  them  to  coalesce 
in  some  common  result.  And  this  Lord  Bacon  has 
done  most  happily,  in  his  masterly,  comprehensive 
maxim,  when  he  says  :  "  We  are  the  real  antiquity." 
For  in  this  he  affirms  both  that  all  the  wealth  of  an- 
tiquity is  accumulated  upon  us,  and  that  we  have  it  as 
material  out  of  which  to  make  a  future.  If  we  cast 
off  the  lessons  of  antiquity,  we  are  not  wise.  If  we 
allow  ourselves  to  be  the  mere  ducts  of  antiquity, 
supposing  that  antiquity  is  to  repeat  itself  in  us,  we  are 
not  wise.  But  we  are  wise  only  when  we  take  note  of 
the  past,  observe  it  carefully,  study  it  respectfully,  cor- 


422  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

rect  ourselves  bj  its  wisdom  and  its  errors,  and  apply 
it  to  fortify  our  own  free  judgment  and  use. 

Nearly  related  to  this  is  the  question  of  church 
authority  and  of  private  judgment.  Doubtless  there 
is  just  so  much  authority  in  the  decisions  of  the  past 
as  private  judgment  can  reasonably  accept.  More 
there  cannot  be.  For  to  what  do  the  advocates  of 
church  authority  appeal,  but  to  private  judgment  ? 
They  ask  us,  in  fact,  to  give  up  private  judgment,  by 
an  act  of  private  judgment ;  in  which  it  will  be  per- 
ceived they  set  open  the  whole  question.  And  what 
do  we,  on  the  other  side,  in  asserting  private  judg- 
ment, but  allow  it  for  granted,  that  there  are  reasons 
and  authorities  under  which  we  are  to  judge  ?  Un- 
less then  we  intend  to  say  that  the  decisions  and 
opinions  of  past  ages,  or  of  all  ages,  are  to  have  no 
weight  in  determining  questions,  and  are  never  to 
turn  the  scales  of  evidence,  there  must  be  cases  where 
we  are  concluded  by  authority  of  the  past.  And  how 
far  different  is  this  from  an  appeal  to  private  judg- 
ment, in  favor  of  accepting  all  the  past  ?  For,  if 
there  be  any  one  article  of  the  past  which  it  cannot 
accept,  then  it  must  be  rejected  under  the  question  of 
giving  up  our  private  judgment,  precisely  as  if  it  were 
cited  only  as  an  evidence  offered  to  private  judgment. 
True,  it  is  maintained,  on  one  side,  that  the  church  of 
the  past  has  been  illuminated  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  so 
as  to  judge  rightly ;  but  this  again  can  be  decided 
only  by  an  appeal  to  private  judgment ;  and  if  the 
advocates  of  chm^ch  authority  could  allow  a  truth  so 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  423 

manifest,  their  difficulty  with  the  advocates  of  private 
judgment  would  soon  be  over.  The  sound  reality  of 
the  question  would  then  be  stated,  and  our  passions 
would  not  be  smoking  round  a  mock  question  that, 
having  no  significance,  admits  no  settlement.  Now 
we  have  it  before  us,  on  one  side,  to  shut  our  eyes, 
and  accept  the  law  of  the  past,  which,  if  we  do,  we 
use  our  will  to  sacrifice  our  understanding,  which  is 
the  most  unmanly  and  basest  kind  of  thralldom.  Then, 
on  the  other,  seeing  that  a  tyrant  is  set  up,  who  re- 
quires us  first  of  all  to  put  out  our  own  eyes,  we  rebel, 
we  even  scout  his  impudent  usurpations.  So  we  have, 
on  one  hand,  men  who  have  lost  their  liberty  ;  on  the 
other,  men  who  have  lost  their  reverence.  One  class 
have  their  souls  entombed  under  church  authority. 
The  other  torn  from  the  past  are  living  as  vagrant 
atoms  in  the  open  spaces  of  time,  till  the  hunger  of 
inanity  and  isolation  kills  them.  Piety  to  the  past 
that  is  a  free  and  filial  deference,  a  rational  and  duti- 
ful love,  is  the  common  want  of  both.  Let  the  slave 
become  a  son,  the  libertine  a  son,  the  past  a  mother 
to  both,  and  the  quarrel  is  ended. 

We  might  go  on  with  illustrations  of  this  kind,  till 
a  great  multitude  of  the  controverted  doctrines  of 
Christianity  are  seen  yoked  with  their  opposites,  in 
friendly  embrace,  pantheism  with  theism,  absolute 
religion  with  revealed  religion,  supralapsarianism  with 
sublapsarianism,  absolute  decrees  with  self-active  free- 
dom, salvation  by  grace  with  salvation  by  works,  in- 
ability with   ability,  natural  depravity  with   natural 


424         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

innocence,  the  bondage  of  sin  with  the  freedom  of  the 
sinner.  In  all  these  repugnances,  we  have  only  the 
two  poles  of  truth,  which  if  we  can  manage  to  com- 
prehend in  one  and  the  same  mental  view,  we  arrive 
at  the  proper  integrity  of  the  Christian  doctrine.  In- 
deed we  may  lay  it  down  as  true,  in  general,  that  all 
the  Christian  sects,  in  all  their  manifold  repugnances 
of  doctrine,  are  only  concerned  to  exhibit  the  great 
elemental  truths  of  Christianity.  They  all  have 
errors,  they  all  partially  mistake,  as  it  is  human  to 
do,  and  yet  they  all  have  some  form  of  truth  to  main- 
tain, which,  when  it  is  viewed  comprehensively,  and 
carefully  distinguished  under  the  forms  of  language, 
will  fall  into  the  same  great  scheme  of  Christian  doc- 
trine and  assist  to  fill  out  the  body  thereof.  So  that 
when  a  man  is  able  to  comprehend  the  reality  of  all 
sects,  casting  away  the  unreality,  he  will  be  a  full- 
grown  proper  Christian  man. 

Dismissing  here  subjects  of  doctrine,  we  go  on  to 
speak  of  polities  and  organizations.  Polities  are  not 
so  much  essential  truths  or  doctrines,  as  means  to 
ends.  They  embody  each  some  practical  aim  or  idea, 
and  offer  each  some  valuable  contribution  to  the  com- 
prehensive church  of  the  future.  Whether  they  will 
ever  coalesce  in  any  practical  unity  or  mutual  ac- 
knowledgment of  each  other,  bringing  in  their  treas- 
ures to  enrich  the  common  body,  many  will  doubt ; 
but  if  a  hope  so  beautiful  must  be  renounced  as  vis- 
ionary, we  shall  easily  convince  ourselves,  by  a  study 
of  their  contents,  that  they  have  each  some  kind  of 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  425 


wealth  which  makes  their  existence  valuable,  even 
now,  to  the  world.  Or  if  some  of  them  have  no 
longer  a  sufficient  reason  for  the  maintenance  of  a 
distinct  existence,  it  is  only  because  they  have  already 
emptied  their  treasures  into  the  world's  history.  Pos- 
sibly such  an  opinion  may  sometime  be  held  of  them 
all ;  for  it  may  be  that  they  are  all  designed  to  serve 
only  temporary  uses.  And  then,  when  they  have  all 
emptied  themselves  into  history,  and  history  contains 
the  product  of  all,  what  forbids  that  a  new  church 
may  emerge  that  shall  comprehend  the  uses  of  all  ? 

And  if  any  such  result  is  ever  to  appear,  where 
sooner  than  here  in  these  United  States  ?  Why  else 
are  we  thrown  together  in  this  manner, — Christians 
of  all  names  and  sects,  living  in  the  same  neighbor- 
hoods, fellow-citizens  under  the  same  laws,  holding 
equal  terms  before  the  laws,  united  in  business,  inter- 
married in  families  ?  No  such  spectacle  as  this  has 
ever  been  exhibited  before,  since  Christianity  entered 
the  world ;  and  yet  it  seems  to  be  the  design  of  God 
that  it  shall,  ere  long,  be  so  in  all  the  other  nations 
of  mankind.  The  extension  of  liberty  must  bring 
the  same  results  to  pass  everywhere.  It  seems  to  be 
God's  purpose  that  all  these  multiform  sects  and  poli- 
ties shall  either  dissolve  each  other  and  lodge  their 
contents  at  last  in  a  grand  comprehensive  unity,  or 
else  wear  themselves  into  similar  shapes  by  their 
mutual  attrition.  And  how  else  could  a  properly 
catholic  state,  which  is  the  hope  of  us  all,  be  con- 
structed ? 


426  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

Forecasting  such  a  possibility,  let  us  glance  at  some 
of  the  sects  and  take  a  survey  of  their  contents.  And 
we  begin  ^vith  the  Baptists,  because  they  seem,  in  their 
very  distinction  as  a  sect,  to  stand  for  that  which  can 
never  be  accepted  ;  for  there  is  not  the  least  proba- 
bility, however  confidently  they  may  expect  it  them- 
selves, that  the  whole  church  of  God  will,  at  any  future 
time,  become  Baptists.  How  then,  it  will  be  asked, 
can  they  ever  come  into  any  comprehensive  state  with- 
out renouncing  that  which  alone  gives  them  a  dis- 
tinct existence  ?  But  the  question  implies  a  view  of 
the  Baptist  sect,  whether  held  by  themselves  or  by 
others,  which  is  superficial  and  does  not  do  them  jus- 
tice. Their  real  office,  as  a  sect,  does  not  lie  in  the 
fact  that  they  are  Baptists,  but  in  that  which  makes 
them  Baptists.  And  the  fact  is  of  little  consequence 
ill  distinguishing  the  sect,  save  as  it  indicates  a  deeper 
and  more  significant  cause  in  their  character.  Taken 
as  a  class,  the  Baptists  are  the  Christian  impractica- 
bles  (not  using  the  word  in  an  evil  sense),  individual- 
ists of  the  highest  and  most  perfect  degree.  They 
are  each  a  kind  of  church  by  himself,  holding  his 
minutest  convictions  as  stern,  immovable  fatalities. 
They  are  the  intolerants,  so  to  speak,  of  individual- 
ism ;  sacrificing  to  it  communion  and  submerging 
under  it,  to  a  great  degree,  the  social  instinct  itself. 
Assuming  such  a  position,  they  stand  off  in  solemn 
antagonism,  against  the  intolerance  of  all  social  con- 
straints, in  church  and  state.  Such  manifestly  are 
the  men  to  be  foremost  in  asserting  the  sacred  rights 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         427 

of  the  conscience.  They  did  it  in  England,  they  did 
it  here,  they  have  done  it  everywhere.  And  now,  at 
this  present  moment,  nothing  is  wanted  in  Rome  it- 
self, and  in  all  the  nations  still  lying  under  ecclesias- 
tical oppression,  so  much  as  the  rising  up  of  a  race 
of  stern  individualists,  or  impracticables  like  the  Bap- 
tists. In  this  view  they  have  filled  a  noble  office. 
They  represent,  in  the  most  naked  form,  that  which 
is  the  distinction  of  modern  history, — tlie  full  recog- 
nition of  the  individual  man  and  the  consequent 
sanctification  of  his  rights  and  liberties. 

And  this  we  may  say  is  the  real  truth  of  the  sect, 
the  practical  idea  which  measures  its  value.  This 
being  accomplished  among  any  given  people,  there  is 
no  longer  any  sufficient  reason  for  its  continued  exist- 
ence. And  when  the  antagonism  which  gave  it  value 
and  life  is  completely  routed,  we  may  reasonably 
doubt  whether  the  anti-social  or  impracticable  spirit 
of  the  sect  will  not  ultimately  take  away  its  own  vital- 
ity. Indeed  we  seriously  doubt  whether  a  community 
wholly  made  up  of  Baptists  could  be  molded  into  any 
settled  and  permanent  form  of  social  order,  whether 
in  church  or  state.  They  would  fl}'  asunder,  just  as 
now  they  withdraw  from  one  another,  constituting 
already  as  many  as  fifteen  or  twenty  distinct  sects. 
They  are  too  unreducible,  too  much  given  to  their  in- 
dividuality, to  melt  into  any  solid  form  of  social  unity. 
Besides,  it  is  sure  to  be  discerned  also,  as  their  mental 
breadth  increases,  that  the  mere  question  of  baptism 
is  one  of  too  small  consequence  to  make  any  dignified 


428  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

reason  for  the  existence  of  a  sect.  It  will  be  won- 
derful too,  if  it  does  not  sometime  appear  unchristian 
to  many  to  forswear  the  communion  of  the  whole 
Christian  world  for  a  pretext  so  slender.  Possibly  it 
may  also  be  discerned  that  the  reasonings  applied 
to  disprove  the  baptism  of  children  are  against  the 
spirit  of  the  gospel,  against  nature,  hurtful  to  the 
family,  hurtful  to  the  church,  proceeding  from  an  ex- 
aggerated individualism  which  takes  away  the  Chris- 
tian zest  of  life  as  a  social  ordinance,  unsanctifies  the 
homes  and  reduces  humanity  itself,  having  Christ  in- 
carnate in  its  bosom,  to  a  collection  of  dry  and  repel- 
lent atoms. 

The  practical  idea  embodied  in  Congregationalism 
or  Independency  is  different,  though  its  history  is,  in 
some  respects,  parallel.  It  is  less  individual  than  the 
Baptist  sect  and  more  so  than  the  Presbyterian.  And, 
in  common  with  all  the  forms  of  Puritanism,  it  is  too 
abhorrent  of  the  past,  too  completely  severed  in  feel- 
ing from  the  past,  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  took  its 
being  in  a  contest  for  the  right  to  reform  the  errors 
of  the  past.  Considered  as  a  distinct  form  of  polity, 
it  stands  for  equality  ;  not  that  equality  which  belongs 
to  separate  atoms,  but  a  social  equality.  It  denies  all 
priestly  dignities,  and  suffers  no  lords  over  the  herit- 
age of  God.  It  makes  the  church  a  brotherhood, 
equal  to  the  work  of  self-government,  and  responsible 
for  the  maintenance  of  its  own  order.  Free  tolera- 
tion, liberty  of  conscience,  it  was  sure  to  accept  in 
due  time,  but  it  was  too  much  intent  at  the  first  on 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         429 

social  ends  to  invent  the  doctrine.  Its  instinct  was 
to  organize  a  social  state, — it  must  build.  Hence  it 
had  no  thought  but  that  the  elements  must  coalesce, 
and  if  they  refused  there  was  no  place  for  them.  The 
fathers  said  they  would  have  a  free  church  and  a  free 
commonwealth,  but  it  was  to  be  free  only  to  them- 
selves. In  their  doctrine  of  equality,  there  was  a 
germ  of  true  religious  liberty,  but  it  was  only  a  germ 
and  time  must  unfold  it.  But,  going  forward  under 
the  impulse  of  a  strong  constructive  instinct,  the  new 
sect  laid  its  foundations,  built  itself  up  into  a  solid 
republican  order,  and  became  the  type  of  all  that  is 
distinctive  in  our  institutions.  Taken  as  a  construc- 
tive power,  it  is  to  the  Baptists  what  Massachusetts  is 
to  Rhode  Island,  or  rather  to  what  Rhode  Island  was 
in  the  social  confusion  of  a  former  age.  Wanting 
originally  in  that  which  gave  its  practical  value  to 
the  Baptist  sect,  it  supplied  an  element  which  in 
that  was  deficient.  Both  are  Congregational,  but  one 
has  furnished  the  antagonistic  spirit  of  liberty,  the 
other  its  constructive  social  powers.  One  therefore  has 
filled  a  more  occasional  office,  the  other  a  more  per- 
manent. For  if  Congregationalism  dies  and  the  name 
is  lost,  no  frame  of  polity  in  church  or  state  can  hope 
for  a  general  prevalence  which  rejects  the  construc- 
tive powers  of  American  history. 

Presbyterianismis  substantially  one  with  it,  in  this  re- 
spect,—a  younger  brother  in  our  history,  who  has  acted, 
for  the  most  part,  in  conjunction  with  the  elder,  assist- 
ing the  same  results.  Methodism  has  partially  accepted 


430         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

the  same  principles  of  equality  and  self-government. 
It  acknowledges  no  priesthood.  The  laity  have  an 
operative  sphere  and  are  sure,  at  length,  to  have  a 
joint  right  in  the  government.  Even  American  Epis- 
copacy lias  sought  to  combine  with  prelacy  a  lay  power 
which  represents  the  constructive  basis  of  our  institu- 
tions. The  whole  American  church  must  some  time 
do  the  same.  Indeed  there  is  a  philosophic  necessity 
that  the  comprehensive  church  of  the  future,  if  ever  it 
shall  appear,  should  conform  to  the  constructive  law 
of  our  institutions.  Whether  it  have  one  order,  or 
three ;  whether  it  be  distributed  into  parishes  or  dio- 
cesan circles ;  it  must  be  a  brotherhood,  officered  by 
itself.  The  phantom  of  a  priestly  succession,  distinct 
from  the  succession  of  the  brotherhood  of  grace,  a 
superstition  cherished  with  so  great  industry  in  Eng- 
land, as  the  last  liope  of  a  priestly  fabric  outlawed 
by  time,  can  never  get  possession  of  this  nation.  The 
constructive  law  of  our  history  is  against  it,  and  it  is 
a  shadow  too  thin  to  battle  with  a  force  of  so  great 
solidity.  Our  philosophy  can  never  accept  it  and  it  is 
too  late  in  the  day  for  a  fiat  superstition  to  palm  itself 
on  the  earnest  belief  of  a  nation  like  this.  Not  one  in 
fifty  of  the  Episcopal  sect  in  this  country  earnestly 
believes  it  now.  Many  adhere  to  the  sect  in  spite  of 
it,  and  for  reasons  of  a  higher  and  manlier  character. 
We  have  barely  touched  upon  the  Methodist  polity, 
but  it  gives  a  beautiful  illustration,  in  its  history,  of  a 
very  important  truth,  viz.,  that  any  organization 
formed  with  a  godly  purpose,  and  a  desire  to  promote 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.  431 

holiness  of  life  and  effectiveness  in  action,  will  be 
consecrated  by  Providence  and  perpetuated  as  a  true 
church.  Methodism  was  not  organized  as  a  church, 
but  as  an  abnormal  order  in  the  church  of  England. 
It  proposed,  not  to  call  out  a  dissenting  body  from  the 
establishment,  but  to  hold  a  position  auxiliary  to  it ; 
to  stimulate  its  piety,  supply  its  defects,  repair  the 
desolations  left  behind  it  by  its  heedless  and  worldly 
ministry.  A  more  disinterested  aim  never  actuated 
any  human  society.  And  such  has  been  its  efficiency, 
so  manifest  the  good  fruits  it  has  yielded,  that  it  has 
been  obliged,  as  it  were,  to  become  a  church  and  be 
perpetuated  as  such.  God  gives  it  the  succession  it 
did  not  ask,  and  holds  it  up  to  mock  all  successions 
that  lie  in  tradition  and  not  in  duty.  Methodism 
also  illustrates  another  truth,  viz.,  that  Arminianism 
can  be  earnest  in  the  godly  life  as  well  as  Calvin- 
ism,— a  fact  that  God  offers  us  to  enlarge  our  charity 
and  prepare  us  to  a  broader  spirit  of  comprehensive- 
ness. Were  it  not  for  this,  were  it  known  that  Armin- 
ianism is  synonymous  only  with  deadness  and  spirit- 
ual inefficiency,  many  would  shrink  from  the  compre- 
hension of  any  one  of  its  principles  as  from  the  contact 
of  death.  Even  now,  when  an  age  of  dead  Calvinism 
appears,  it  has  become  a  kind  of  habit  with  us,  the 
injustice  of  which  many  do  not  know,  to  call  the 
profitless  churches  and  ministers  Arminians.  It 
would  seem  that  a  glance  at  the  doctrines  held  on  one 
side  by  these  dead  churches,  then  at  our  Methodist 
brethren  on  the  other,  devout,  earnest,  filling  the  new 


432         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

regions  and  the  desolate  wastes  of  the  land  with  their 
fervent  prayers  and  the  fervent  praises  of  men  con- 
verted to  God,  would  suffice  to  show  us  all,  first  that 
Calvinism  may  be  dead,  and  second  that  Arminianism 
may  be  alive, — possibly  that  a  comprehension  of  both 
will  be  safer  than  to  rest  in  either.  Nor  is  there 
any  sect  in  our  country,  we  are  sure,  that  will  more 
readily  sink  itself  in  a  comprehensive  unity  of  all 
than  this,  which  undertook  in  England  to  be  auxiliary 
only  to  another,  and  which  here  rejoices  in  being  a 
pioneer  to  all  others.  May  it  not  be  found  also  that 
the  true  comprehensive  church  will  require  an  order 
of  Methodism  within  itself,  that  all  defects  may  be 
supplied,  and  all  waste  places  visited  ? 

The  most  obstinate  impediment  to  a  comprehensive 
church  is  to  be  found,  we  fear,  in  the  Episcopal  church 
of  our  country.  There  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  fatality, 
if  we  should  not  rather  say  fatuity,  in  our  American 
Episcopacy,  which  forbids  it  to  see  where  its  own  in- 
terest lies,  and  also  what  is  due  from  it  to  the  com- 
mon cause  of  God  in  the  nation.  It  embodies  in  itself 
treasures  of  spiritual  wealth  that  were  reluctantly 
renounced  by  our  fathers,  and  which  many  among  us 
now  would  gladly  accept,  if  the  wood,  hay,  and  stub- 
ble were  removed.  We  could  draw  out  a  modification 
of  its  liturgy  and  also  of  its  polity,  which  would  make 
it  inviting  to  the  great  body  of  Christians  under  other 
names,  and  not  a  whit  less  satisfactory  to  its  most 
earnest  lay  adherents ;  it  only  would  not  satisfy  the 
egregious   claims  of  its  priesthood.     They  would  be 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         433 

required  to  give  up  the  superstitions  they  have  gath- 
ered round  their  office,  and  interwoven  with  their 
priestly  functions.  If  they  could  cease  to  Anglicize 
and  consent  to  be  Americans  ;  if  letting  go  their  tradi- 
tional grace,  they  could  suffer  a  very  little  of  true 
Christian  philosophy ;  we  would  give  them  a  divine 
right  in  their  office,  quite  as  efficient  and  far  more 
valid  than  any  which  they  cling  to  now. 

Doubtless  there  is  a  truth,  a  great  and  momentous 
truth,  wrapped  up  in  their  doctrine  of  succession  ;  for 
the  church  of  God  is  a  vital  body,  and  a  vital  body  is 
one ;  so  completely  one,  in  fact,  as  well-nigh  to  ex- 
clude the  idea  of  succession.  Its  life  is  the  life  of 
God.  This  is  its  organific  power,  and  it  fills  all  ages, 
not  as  collective  or  successive  aggregations,  but  as  a 
corporate  unity  ;  sets  us  in  immediate  and  living  con- 
nection with  the  apostles  and  all  saints  of  all  ages, 
makes  them  venerable  to  our  thoughts,  and  us  partici- 
pants in  their  history.  So  that  a  church  out.  of  con- 
nection with  the  past  is  impossible,  and  a  church  that 
has  lost  the  sense  of  its  connection,  regarding  itself 
as  being  historically  new,  is  a  church  chilled  and 
benumbed  by  the  fictitious  isolation  it  assumes.  But 
it  does  not  follow  that  the  vital  unity  of  the  church  is 
constructed  by  an  official  succession  of  ministers  or 
church  magistrates,  but  the  contrary ;  for  then  there 
would  be  a  complete  vital  organism  in  the  magistracy 
of  the  church,  distinct  from  that  of  the  general  body 
of  disciples,  requiring  us  to  believe  that  there  is  either 
no  vital  unity  in  that,  or  else  that  there  are  two  dis- 


434  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

tiiict  unities,  one  of  the  magistracy  and  another  of  the 
body,  which  is  the  same  as  to  deny  the  unity  of  the 
church. 

At  the  same  time,  there  is  an  important  truth  also 
wrapped  up  in  this  idea  of  a  magisterial  grace  descend- 
ing from  one  to  another.  It  is  only  misconceived. 
The  truth  is  this,  that  every  officer  in  the  church,  as 
in  the  state,  must  be  in  it  by  a  divine  right ;  he  must  be 
clothed  in  his  office  by  God.  But  it  does  not  follow 
that  he  must  be  clothed  in  a  certain  way,  viz.,  by  a 
traditional  grace  of  succession.  In  the  days  when 
kings  and  nobles  succeeded  by  blood,  and  legitimacy 
was  the  same  thing  as  a  divine  right  to  reign,  it  was 
natural  that  bishops,  who  do  not  succeed  by  blood, 
should  think  it  essential  to  their  office  that  it  be  de- 
rived by  some  kind  of  succession.  Hence  the  fig- 
ment of  a  bishop's  grace  was  invented,  and  was  read- 
ily accepted  by  the  church  ;  for  how  else  could  a 
bishop  have  any  right,  unless  by  some  kind  of  tradi- 
tion or  inheritance  ?  And  how  shall  the  Anglican 
church  fortify  itself  now  against  the  inroads  of  change, 
except  as  it  consecrates  this  figment  ?  Might  not  our 
American  Episcopacy  let  go  this  fiction  of  legitimacy, 
and,  ceasing  to  nurse  a  superstition  so  feeble  and  void 
of  dignity,  trust  itself  to  such  divine  right  as  it  may 
have  directly  from  God  as  the  head  of  all  society  ? 
For  it  is  God  who  clothes  all  office  with  a  sacred  right, 
an  American  president  as  truly  as  a  British  queen. 
The  designation  may  be  by  blood  or  by  election  ;  the 
investiture  may  be  in  one  form  or  another ;  still  the 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         435 

magistrate  is  in  by  a  divine  right  under  God  as  the 
fountain  of  all  magistracy. 

We  are  the  more  willing  to  apologize  for  our  Ameri- 
can Episcopacy,  as  adhering  until  now  to  this  Angli- 
cizing habit,  because  of  the  practically  atheistic  no- 
tions of  government"  which  have  hitherto  prevailed 
among  our  people.  But  when  we  have  had  time  to 
bring  out  the  true  theory  of  our  government, — elec- 
tion designating  the  ruler,  God  accepting  and  clothing 
him  in  his  office, — authority  derived  not  from  men, 
but  from  God,  the  only  conceivable  fountain  of 
authority  ;  when  our  political  philosophy  has  brought 
us  to  this,  (for  as  yet  we  have  no  political  philosophy 
that  relates  to  anything  deeper  than  the  forms  of  gov- 
ernment,) then  it  will  be  more  inexcusable  to  cling  to 
the  superstition  of  a  canonical  succession  in  the 
church.  And  why  should  not  our  American  Episco- 
pacy, embracing  now  a  manlier  doctrine,  and  marry- 
ing itself  boldly  to  our  Amei'ican  institutions,  assist 
us  in  consecrating  the  divine  right  of  our  civil  mag- 
istracies, instead  of  saying  practically  that  God  can 
sanctify  a  magistracy  only  through  a  line  of  legiti- 
macy and  a  traditional  investiture  ? 

We  can  never  have  a  comprehensive  church,  in  this 
nation,  that  mocks  the  political  order  of  the  nation. 
Let  our  Episcopal  friends  consider  this,  and  give  to 
the  considerations  we  have  offered  their  true  weight ; 
and  then  they  will  be  ready  to  offer  their  church  to 
the  nation,  not  as  a  foreign  mannerism,  not  as  an 
affront  to  our  feelings  and  our  history,  but  as  Christ 


436  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

offers  love  to  the  race,  paying  tribute  even  to  Cassar. 
We  care  not  for  three  orders  or  thirty,  if  only  they 
bring  us  no  superstitions  and  no  lords  over  God's  her- 
itage. American  Episcopacy  is  really  nearer  to  Ameri- 
can Congregationalism  now  than  it  is  to  the  state 
establishment  of  England,  if  only  it  could  acknowl- 
edge what  a  rigid  analysis  of  structure  would  certainly 
show.  Let  it  thank  American  history  that  it  is  brought 
so  much  nearer  to  the  true  apostolic  model.  And 
if  Puritanism  has  been  a  root  in  our  history,  let  some 
honor  be  ascribed  to  Puritanism.  Being  sure  also  of 
this,  that  no  church  can  unite  itself  to  the  love  and 
life  of  a  nation,  which  does  not  honor  its  fathers. 
Actuated  by  views  like  these,  let  our  American  Epis- 
copacy pour  itself  into  our  bosom,  as  it  may,  with  all 
its  venerable  treasures  ;  neither  suffer,  a  doubt  that 
all  it  has,  which  is  worth  accepting,  will  be  accepted. 
We  come  now,  last  of  all,  to  the  Pomish  church, 
which,  at  present,  is  not  in  any  sense  an  American 
church,  but  a  Romish.  It  is  foreign  not  in  its  sym- 
pathies only,  but  in  its  organization ;  its  head  and 
ruling  power  is  at  Rome.  What  are  to  be  its  fortunes 
in  this  country  it  may  be  difiicult  to  foretell.  It  is 
perfectly  manifest,  however,  that  our  institutions  must 
communicate  their  spirit  to  its  disciples  in  such  a  de- 
gree, as  to  limit  effectually  the  powers  of  its  priest- 
hood, and  in  process  of  time  to  require  radical  changes 
in  its  discipline.  It  can  live  among  us  only  as  it  sub- 
mits to  be  Americanized.  At  present  it  has  little 
moral  power  in  our  country,  and  we  see  not  how  it 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         437 

can  well  have  more,  until  it  suffers  a  closer  conformity 
with  our  institutions.  Were  it  left  to  stand  alone,  as 
a  foreign  religion,  it  would  soon  have  less.  But  un- 
happily another  church,  maintaining  its  pretensions  by 
arguments  of  a  similar  character,  and  associated  with 
the  name  of  England,  mitigates  the  alien  aspect  it 
would  have  when  standing  alone,  and  imparts  to  it  a 
show  of  character  it  has  not  in  itself. 

We  regard  the  Romish  church  as  a  kind  of  monu- 
mental Christianity.  Its  rites,  its  creeds,  its  prayers, 
are  all  monuments ;  the  shrines  under  which  it  has 
gathered  the  bones  of  the  dead  ages  of  the  faith  are 
monuments ;  its  cathedrals  are  representations  in 
stone  of  their  builders,  and  the  grandeur  of  their 
Christian  ideas.  The  saints'  days  are  a  practice  in 
the  mnemonics  of  history.  The  mendicant  orders, 
monasteries,  and  religious  houses  still  continued,  after 
the  spirit  of  life  in  which  they  rose  has  departed,  are 
a  pantomime  all  of  death  and  the  dead.  So  of  the 
pictures,  images,  altars,  amulets,  relics,  and  priestly 
robes, — everything  seen,  handled,  and  used  in  the 
machinery  of  the  worship,  is  monumental.  The  in- 
cense has  a  Jewish  smell,  the  vestals  are  a  classic,  the 
candles  shed  a  pagan  light.  The  whole  immense 
framework  of  the  religion  is  monumental.  It  repre- 
sents, not  the  contents  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  but 
the  history  of  that  Gospel ;  showing  how  it  has  acted 
on  the  base  elements  of  an  idolatrous  world  and  a 
corrupt  human  nature,  and  how  they,  in  turn,  have 
acted  upon  it.     The  good  and  the  evil,  the  holy  and 


438         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

the  base,  the  charities  of  saints  and  the  extortions  of 
sin,  the  pure  breathings  of  the  just  and  the  cruelties 
of  power,  trophies  of  faith  and  scars  of  wrong,  gen- 
tile prejudices,  pagan  philosophies,  gods  baptized, — 
everything  that  has  been  since  the  Lord's  ascension, 
all  that  men  have  done  out  of  an  evil  or  a  good  heart 
to  build  up  his  religion,  is  represented  and  embodied. 
The  power  of  Christ  is  visible  ;  in  one  view  the  struc- 
ture is  a  memorial  of  his  truth.  Quite  as  visible  is 
the  power  of  evil.  It  is  such  a  fabric  as  man  builds, 
when  he  blends  himself  and  the  social  delusions  of 
his  race  with  the  heavenly  truth  he  will  consecrate. 

And  yet,  if  we  regard  it  as  the  design  of  God  to 
connect  the  Christian  future  with  the  Christian  past 
by  means  of  Romanism,  how  manifest  is  it  that  Ro- 
manism is  what  it  should  be !  It  garners  up  the  life 
of  the  dead  ages,  as  it  gathers  the  bodies  of  the 
saints  under  its  shrines,  and  bears  them '  in  palpable 
show  through  dark  ages  of  sense  and  oblivion,  to 
connect  with  the  living  thoughts  of  a  more  remote 
and  more  intelligent  future.  For,  though  we  may 
shrink  from  any  thought  of  union  with  its  baser  con- 
tents, we  shall  embrace  with  the  livelier  and  healthier 
reverence  on  that  account  all  it  contains  of  sanctity 
and  truth.  We  shall  see  Christ  struo-a^'lino:  through 
it,  as  the  sun  through  clouds.  The  righteous  good  of 
the  past  will  appear  in  it,  as  in  a  dark  and  solemn 
tragedy,  to  be  embraced  with  tears.  Great  truths 
prevailing  still  against  long  ages  of  superstition  and 
perverse  speculation,  as  if  unable  to  die,  will  shine 


CHRISTIAN     COMPREHENSIVENESS.         439 

forth  ill  it  the  more  gloriously  that  they  have  proved 
their  divinity.  Things  that  move  us  by  their  sanctity 
and  grandeur  will  move  us  the  more  deeply,  that  things 
base  and  offensive,  always  at  hand,  throw  us  into  a 
maze  and  mix  our  reverence  with  disgust.  Protesting 
against  the  human,  we  shall  be  the  more  impressed 
by  what  is  divine. 

But  this,  we  regret  to  say,  is  not  yet  the  happiness 
of  Protestantism.  The  throe  of  the  Protest  has  been  so 
severe,  and  the  consequent  antagonism  so  intense, 
that  a  kind  of  horror,  which  absorbs  all  discrimina- 
tive thoughts,  separates  us  from  Romanism  and  it  from 
us.  As  Protestants,  we  seem  to  imagine  a  new  begin- 
ning of  Christianity.  We  assert  a  future  seemingly 
disrupted  from  the  past,  and  Romanism  confronts  us 
with  a  past  disrupted  from  the  future.  And  this  is  a 
condition  of  death  to  both ;  for  every  social  body, 
whether  civil  or  Christian,  is  of  the  past  and  for  the 
future,  and  can  not  properly  live  save  as  it  connects 
with  both. 

What  now  we  need  is  this ;  being  delivered  of  the 
mutual  horror,  which  has  thrown  both  great  divis- 
ions of  the  church  asunder  and  been  a  wall  of  unrea- 
son between  them,  we  must  dare  to  look,  one  at  the 
other,  with  eyes  of  deliberative  inspection.  And  thus 
we  shall  be  drawn  gradually  towards  comprehension ; 
one  to  unite  with  the  Christian  past,  the  other  with 
the  Christian  future ;  the  old  to  be  purified  by  the 
new,  the  new  to  be  hallowed  and  made  venerable  by 
the  old.     Is  not  such  a  process  already  begun  ?  What 


440         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

signifies  the  new  sympathy,  which  now  exists,  between 
the  Romish  state  and  the  British  government ;  a  sym- 
])athv  strono-  enouo'h  even  to  countervail  the  influence 
of  Austria  ?  And  what  is  the  import  of  the  cheers 
for  Pius  Ninth,  that  are  rolling  back  upon  Italy  from 
this  democratic  and  Protestant  people  ?  And  what  is 
to  be  the  necessary  result  of  the  spread  of  intelligence 
and  of  popular  freedom,  the  growth  of  commerce,  the 
rapid  intercommunications  of  travel,  and  the  universal 
intermingling  of  sects,  which  are  sure  to  arise,  on  the 
future  prevalence  of  liberty?  The  laws  of  society 
seem  to  prophesy  here,  and  what  do  they  tell  us  ? 
Let  no  one  imagine  the  impossibility  of  any  such  thing 
as  a  gradual  approach  or  even  a  final  coalescence  of 
the  tAvo  forms  of  religion.  If  a  Grotius  and  a  Leibnitz 
maintained,  in  their  day,  the  possibility  of  a  reconcili- 
ation and  a  final  comprehension,  laboring  earnestly  to 
accomplish  it,  we  may  well  enough  risk  any  sentence 
that  may  be  passed  upon  us  for  cherishing  the  same 
thought  now. 

Unhappily  we  are  accustomed  only  to  speak  of  the 
differences  between  us  and  the  Romanists,  not  of  our 
agreements.  Probably  most  Protestants  would  be 
surprised  by  the  results  that  might  appear  on  a  rigid 
comparison  of  our  doctrines,  so  many  are  the  coinci- 
dences on  points  generally  considered  to  be  of  the 
first  consequence.  And  where  some  repugnances 
exist,  a  still  more  comprehensive  scrutiny  would  often 
show  that  one  is  l)ut  tlie  complement  of  the  other. 
Elements  also  in  the  Romish  polity,  which  we  regard 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         441 

with  unqualified  repugnance  or  even  abhorrence,  will 
sometimes  be  found,  when  viewed  historically,  to  have 
served  uses  so  important  as  to  allow  a  mitigation  of 
our  judgments.  We  just  now  spoke,  for  example,  of 
the  monastic  institutions  in  terms  that  are  well  enough 
adapted  to  their  present  merits.  But  in  their  origin, 
they  were  scarcely  more  than  a  natural  development 
or  outward  expression  of  the  unworldly  spirit  of  the 
Christian  life.  And  of  this  they  stood  as  a  living 
symbol  before  mankind,  setting  forth,  in  visible  show, 
the  antagonism  between  this  world  and  the  self-cruci- 
fying spirit  of  a  life  of  faith.  And  as  every  sort  of 
truth  has  been  maintained  by  some  extreme  view  of 
it,  we  need  not  scruple  to  allow  that  the  unworldly 
nature  of  the  godly  life  was  more  distinctly  impressed 
on  the  minds  of  men,  and  is  also  more  seriously  ap- 
prehended even  by  us,  by  means  of  the  ascetic  or 
monastic  institutions.  For  we  can  not  definitely  tell 
what  causes  in  the  past  have  assisted  to  construct  our 
own  views  and  sentiments,  or  detect  the  secret  chem- 
istry of  history  by  which  they  have  been  shaped.  In 
short,  we  may  well  doubt  whether,  if  Christ  had  left 
the  world,  and  these  institutions  had  not  arisen,  the 
deep  and  awful  chasm  between  the  life  of  this  world 
and  the  life  of  faith  would  ever  have  been  practically 
set  open  to  human  apprehension,  as  it  now  is.  If 
then,  we  do  not  prefer,  just  now,  to  commence  building 
monasteries,  or  praising  the  sanctity  of  the  living 
monks,  it  should  comfort  us,  if  we  can  find  any  inlet 
for  respect  in  the  history  of  their  origin. 


442         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

The  ecclesiastical  supremacy  of  the  Pope,  and  the 
st^rn  political  unity  of  the  church  under  him,  are  quite 
as  little  respected  by  us  as  they  can  be,  but  even  these 
may  yet  be  viewed  in  a  similar  light.  The  Romish 
church  glories  in  the  word  catliolic^  understanding 
however,  by  that  term,  nothing  different  from  a  uni- 
versal polity.  It  is  not  a  world-religion,  but  an  iron 
ecclesiasticism  for  the  world,  the  only  possible  church, 
thus  and  therefore  the  catholic  church.  Under  this 
formal  error,  it  represents  and  holds  before  mankind 
a  great  and  holy  truth.  It  symbolizes  unity  and  uni- 
versality. And  was  it  not  necessary,  when  the  free 
mind  of  the  Protestant  world  fell  off  into  contesting 
bodies  and  scouting  parties,  flying  hither  and  thither 
in  quest  of  truth,  that  some  consolidated  body  should 
remain,  to  hold  itself  up  as  a  symbol  of  the  catholic 
unity,  and  recall  the  mind  of  the  discursives  to  that 
which  is  the  only  proper  aim  and  last  end  of  their  in- 
quiries, a  true  catholic  unity ;  that  which  is  never  to 
be  forgotten,  always  to  be  longed  for,  and  as  soon  as 
may  be,  to  be  realized  ?  For  while  Romanism  stands 
for  unity,  and  holds  up  its  symbol,  it  has  not  yet  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  a  true  catholic  church.  No  church 
is  catholic,  simply  because  it  includes  the  human  race  ; 
it  must  include  them  in  the  truth ;  it  must  compre- 
hend them  only  as  it  is  itself  comprehensive.  Hence 
there  is  implied,  as  a  necessary  condition,  so  much  of ' 
disintegration,  as  will  start  a  discursive  process  and 
bring  out  all  the  antagonisms  involved  in  a  complete 
and  many-sided  view  of  the  truth..    For  this  many- 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS  443 

sided  view  is  not  the  view  of  any  single  man  or  body 
of  men.  God  has  it,  for  the  absolute  truth  is  in  him. 
We  have  it  not,  save  by  manifold  experiment.  Rome 
assumes  that  it  has  even  absolute  truth,  without 
experiment,  and  in  that  right  challenges  the  assent  of 
all  mankind.  But  this  is  only  to  claim  a  universal 
application  for  that  which  is  itself  partial,  which  is 
not  catholicity.  True  catholicity  offers  a  universal 
doctrine,  and  for  that  seeks  a  universal  application. 
The  first  problem  is  to  find  the  universal  doctrine,  a 
problem  which  Protestantism  is  faithfully  engaged  to 
solve.  For  it  is  remarkable  that,  while  the  Romish 
church  holds  out  the  formal  type  or  symbol  of  catholi- 
city in  its  discipline.  Protestantism  only  supplies  the 
agencies  by  which  catholicity  may  be  realized.  By 
this  only,  in  its  free  and  discursi\^e  working,  are 
brought  to  light  and  set  up  for  distinct  apprehension, 
all  the  elements  to  be  combined  in  the  settlement  of  a 
universal  or  complete  body  of  truth.  Romanism  holds 
the  mold  of  unity,  and  we  are  trying  to  fill  it.  And 
when  the  comprehensive  process  is  completed  by 
which  the  material  we  offer  is'  brought  into  a  common 
result,  a  true  catholic  church  will  appear, — a  church 
including  the  free  mind  of  the  world,  because  it  rep- 
resents the  free  mind  of  the  world.  All  the  views  of 
all  ages  and  schools  being  combined  in  a  comprehen- 
sive result,  that  result  will  be  the  nearest  approxima- 
tion to  the  absolute  truth  of  God,  and  thus  a  fit 
ground  of  catholicity. 

That  the  whole  Christian  world,  however,  will  ever 


444  CHRISTIAN     COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

fall  under  anj  form  of  strict  ecclesiasticism,  is  hardly 
to  be  expected.  A  machinery  so  cumbrous  could 
hardly  be  supported,  and  it  would  offer  incentives  to 
human  ambition  more  insupportable  than  the  machin- 
ery itself.  The  Romanist  will,  just  now,  think  other- 
wise. Arnold  and  the  Chevalier  Bunsen  will  prophesy 
a  "  church  of  the  future "  whose  organic  polity  is 
national.  We  republicans  may  imagine  the  same, 
only  that  the  civil  power  will  not  intermeddlcj  save 
as  it  offers  a  friendly  protection  to  the  church,  repaid 
by  its  sanctifying  presence  and  the  union  it  conse- 
crates between  the  public  life  of  the  nation  and  God. 
Enough  that  the  church,  in  all  lands  and  under  what- 
ever diversities,  will  know  itself  as  one,  in  common 
works,  a  common  faith,  and  an  accordant  worship, — 
the  body  of  Christ  on  earth,  the  fullness  of  him  that 
filleth  all  in  all.  And  having  come  to  this,  it  will  be 
strange  if  it  should  not  sometimes  gather  its  ecumeni- 
cal assemblies,  not  as  convocations  of  state  and  church 
dignitaries  like  those  of  old  time,  deputed  to  legislate 
over  the  faith  ;  but  assemblies  of  the  friends  and  min- 
isters of  God,  convoked  to  speak  of  things  pertaining 
to  the  kingdom,  and  worship  together  before  the  King. 
And  if  those  magnificent  piles,  erected  to  God  by  the 
men  of  past  ages,  should  some  time  hang  their  arches, 
like  skies  of  stone,  over  the  assembled  messengers  of 
the  world's  churches,  and  shake  with  the  sound  of 
their  ecumenical  hymn,  it  will  then  be  judged  that 
the  ancient  builders  piled  these  holy  structures  for  a 
purpose  worthy  of  their  grandeur.     Assembled  thus 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         445 

in  the  grand  cathedral  of  the  North,  it  will  not  be  for- 
gotten that  Protestantism  and  Romanism  assisted 
both  together  in  piling  up  so  vast  a  fabric,  and  then 
the  meaning  of  Avhat  was  once  a  conjunction  so 
strange  will  be  solved.  The  "  Three  Kings  "  then 
will  sleep  as  consecrated  figments  in  their  shrine, 
blank  nothings,  lost  to  thought,  before  the  King  of 
glory.  Or  assembled  where  a  Borromeo  sleeps  en- 
cased in  gold  and  gems,  a  real  and  true  saint  of  the 
past,  the  past  will  be  there,  as  a  living  power,  repelled 
by  no  disdain,  welcome  to  all  hearts,  and  breathing 
into  all  a  spirit  of  conscious  unity  with  the  buried 
just  of  all  ages  and  climes.  We  are  willing  too  that 
St.  Peter's  should  witness  a  convocation  like  this  ;  for 
then  the  true  idea  of  the  Catholic  church  will  have 
arrived  at  Rome.  And  if  it  may,  for  one  such  occa- 
sion, be  accepted  as  the  metropolis  of  the  Christian 
world,  edicts  and  bulls  will  no  more  be  its  delight ; 
the  tiara  will  pass  to  the  head  of  the  King,  where  it 
belongs  ;  offerings  holier  than  all  incense  will  fill  the 
place,  and  the  grand  miserere  of  the  nations,  poured 
out  as  a  wail  for  sin,  will  melt  them  into  a  fellowsliip 
so  lowly  that  human  dignities  will  be  forgotten.  And 
then  we  cannot  object  if  the  Latin  prayers,  which  em- 
body the  worship  of  past  ages,  should  find  their  legiti- 
mate use  as  a  common  language  of  devotion,  for  the 
assembled  tongues  of  mankind. 

In  offering  these  thoughts  to  the  public,  we  are  well 
aware  that  some  may  be  scandalized  or  alarmed  by* 
their  free  spirit.     But  such  will  relieve  their  appre- 


446         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

hensions,  if  they  consider  that  we  ask  no  compromise 
of  opinions  and  do  not  even  speak  of  liberality  as  a 
special  Christian  virtue.  "We  simply  require  it  of  all 
Christians  to  look  for  the  truth,  and  the  truth  only. 
And  if  we  require  them  to  look  beyond  themselves 
and  across  their  own  boundaries,  we  see  not  that  there 
is  any  thing  specially  frightful  in  this,  if  they  look  for 
nothing  but  the  truth.  Or  if  we  prepare  a  previous 
conviction  in  their  minds,  that  there  is  somewhat  of 
truth  in  all  Christian  bodies,  does  any  one  doubt  that 
there  is  ?  And  if  it  should  happen  that  all  these  bodies 
look  upon  the  truth  on  a  side  peculiar  to  themselves, 
what  harm  can  it  do  us  to  pass  round  and  look  through 
their  eyes  ?  The  method  taken  by  the  late  Evangeli- 
cal Alliance  at  London,  was  truly  a  dangerous  method 
and  closely  allied  to  licentiousness  ;  for  it  chose  out 
only  common  truths  in  which  all  the  parties  could 
agree,  and  consented,  to  let  all  other  truths  pass  into 
shade  as  of  minor  consequence.  We  recognize,  con- 
trary to  this,  the  great  principle  that  truth  is  a  whole 
and  is  to  be  sought  only  as  a  whole,  anywhere,  every- 
where, and  by  all  means.  Let  no  .one  fear  the  de- 
bauching of  his  Christian  integrity  in  so  doing. 

Others  probably  will  look  upon  our  labor  in  this 
matter  as  a  useless  expenditure  of  breath,  and  the 
hope  we  encourage  as  altogether  visionary  and  ro- 
mantic. It  would  be,  if  we  held  the  expectation  that 
the  church  of  God  is  ever  to  become  a  political  unity. 
Or  if  we  proposed  to  the  Christian  sects  to  come  to- 
gether and  work  out  a  comprehensive  unity  by  any 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         447 

deliberative  effort,  in  the  manner  of  compromise  and 
composition.  Or  if  we  looked  for  the  realization  of 
any  such  result  as  we  speak  of,  by  any  given  method, 
within  any  given  space  of  time.  Our  object  is  simply 
to  set  before  the  Christian  sects  the  comfortable  truth 
that  our  antagonisms  are,  to  a  great  degree,  compre- 
hensible,— parts  only  or  partialities,  having  each  their 
complement  in  all  the  others.  Thus  we  seek  to  beget 
a  more  fraternal  feeling  and  soften  the  asperities  and 
prejudices  that  hold  us  asunder  ;  thus  to  set  all  think- 
ing minds  on  an  endeavor  after  the  broadest  and  most 
catholic  views  of  truth,  in  the  confident  hope  that  God 
will  thus  enlarge  their  souls,  draw  them  together 
towards  a  more  complete  brotherhood,  and  finally  into 
a  full  consent  of  worship.  This,  if  we  rightly  under- 
stand, is  what  the  Scriptures  mean  by  "  seeing  eye  to 
eye.  "  We  now  see  shoulder  to  shoulder  ;  but  when 
we  can  look  into  the  eye,  every  man  of  his  brother, 
and  see  what  he  sees,  we  shall  be  one. 

And  if  any  one  asks,  when  shall  these  things  be  ? 
we  may  well  enough  refer  him  to  the  geologists  for 
an  answer.  For  if  God  required  long  ages  of  heav- 
ing and  fiery  commotion  to  settle  the  world's  layers 
into  peace  and  habitable  order,  we  ought  not  utterly 
to  despair,  if  the  geologic  era  of  the  church  covers  a 
somewhat  longer  space  of  time  than  we  ourselves 
might  prescribe.  Enough  for  us  that  we  show  the 
laws  of  commotion  and  the  methods  of  final  pacifica- 
tion. Enough  for  us  that  the  views  we  have  advanced, 
if  accepted  and  held  by  our  fellow-Christians,  will  be 


448         CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

found  to  contain  the  pliilosopliic  causes  of  a  better 
day,  drawing  us  all  into  a  closer  assimilation  and,  as 
sure  as  causes  must  have  their  effects,  into  a  final  em- 
brace in  the  truth.  Confident  of  this,  and  leaving 
times  and  seasons  to  God,  we  do  not  seem  to  propose 
to  the  world  unpractical  schemes  or  romantic  expec- 
tations. 

This  discussion  we  have  already  protracted  beyond 
our  ordinary  limits,  but  the  magnitude  of  the  subject 
must  be  our  excuse.  There  is  yet  a  Avhole  branch  of 
it  remaining  untouched,  and  one  that  would  require  a 
volume  to  give  it  a  sufficient  representation.  It  is 
this, — to  exhibit  the  laws  and  conditions  under  which 
the  comprehensive  process  we  speak  of  may  be  con- 
ducted to  its  results  with  the  greatest  certainty  and 
expedition.  All  Ave  can  do  here  at  present  is  to  offer 
a  few  suggestions. 

And  first  of  all,  there  needs  to  be  a  more  compre- 
hensive character  formed  in  individual  Christians. 
We  must  have  a  piety  not  of  "  our  church,"  or  "  our 
catechism,"  or  "  our  baptism,"  or  our  "  Christian 
democracy,"  but  a  piety  measured  by  God  himself. 
We  must  look  upon  the  comprehensive  character  as  a 
Christian  attainment.  Such  was  the  character  of- 
Christ,  and  therefore  we  must  be  as  sure  that  he  will 
have  it  formed  in  us,  as  that  he  will  bring  us  into  his 
own  image.  God  himself  too,  is  a  comprehensive  be- 
ing in  his  character,  so  that  coming  unto  him  in  the 
closest  and  most  intimate  union  of  spirit,  which  is  the 
very  idea  of  Christian  piety,  we  must  endeavor  to  par- 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         449 

take  of  that  quality  which  most  distinguishes  him. 
For  it  is  not  some  better  philosophy  generated  in  our 
understanding  that  can  work  out,  by  itself,  the  process 
of  which  we  speak.  We  must  have  a  better  philoso- 
phy in  our  heart  and  spirit,  and  this  we  must  draw 
from  God.  We  shall  attain  to  no  true  comprehen- 
siveness, except  as  we  find  it  in  God;  in  the  holier 
love  which  melts  away  our  prejudices,  subordinates 
our  human  passions,  expands  the  narrowness  of  our 
fallen  nature,  and  makes  us  partake  of  the  divine  na- 
ture. This  will  universalize,  first  our  heart  and, 
through  that,  gradually,  our  understanding.  We 
shall  have  a  single  eye  when  we  have  a  simple,  godly 
heart.  A  really  comprehensive  spirit,  one  all  devoted 
to  truth,  stretching  itself  to  contain  all  truth,  as  seen 
by  all  Christian  minds,  must  be  a  religious  spirit. 
Clearing  itself  of  all  human  trammels,  it  must  go  up 
unto  God  himself ;  for  nowhere  short  of  God  do  the 
lines  of  truth  meet  and  come  into  harmony  so  that  a 
mind  may  comprehend  them.  In  him  too,  as  we  cer- 
tainly know,  all  our  sects  and  divisions  melt  into 
unity.  He  is  not  the  God  of  our  sect.  We  dare  not 
say  it  or  think  it.  We  tacitly  admit  that  he  holds 
some  broader  view,  which  is  also  and  for  that  reason, 
juster  than  ours.  We  do  not  doubt  that  he  looks  upon 
us  all  as  diminished  atoms  of  intelligence  ranging  in 
his  infinite  realm  of  truth,  fixing  here  and  there  upon 
our  points  of  doctrine,  and  regarding  each  the  field 
that  lies  within  his  narrow  horizon  as  the  whole 
field, — repugnant  therefore,  as  between  ourselves,  but 


450          CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

still  in  radical  harmony,  as  before  him.  To  such 
thoughts  we  are  to  accustom  ourselves,  to  consecrate 
them  in  our  prayers  and  nourish  them  before  him  by 
a  more,  conscious  and  habitual  exercise.  And  if  our 
piety  does  not  enlarge  us  in  this  manner,  we  are  rather 
to  repent  of  it  than  to  bless  ourselves  in  it.  But  if 
God  be  in  us,  enlarging  us  by  his  own  measure  and 
causing  us  to  receive  of  his  own  greatness,  then  shall 
we  cease  to  be  straitened  in  ourselves,  and  be  able  to 
comprehend  that  length  and  breadth  and  depth  and 
height,  which  it  is  the  prerogative  of  his  saints  to  do. 
It  will  help  us  also  to  remember  that,  as  men  or 
human  creatures,  our  tendency  is  to  err  by  narrow- 
ness and  partiality,  never  by  completeness  or  compre- 
hensiveness. We  are  not  only  finite,  but  we  enter 
into  life  only  as  rudimental  beings,  here  to  be 
filled  out  into  proper  men.  We  are  to  study, 
reflect,  observe,  rectify  errors,  then  to  rectify  rectifi- 
cations, and  thus  to  fill  out  the  character  of  sons  of 
God.  Children,  we  observe,  always  go  for  extremes. 
They  aijprehe^id  what  they  may,  but  in  our  sense  of 
the  word,  comprehend  nothing ;  and  a  very  preponder- 
ant number  of  our  race  seem  never  to  get  beyond 
their  childhood  in  this  respect.  Our  very  finiteness, 
struggling  after  rest  in  the  infinite,  is  obliged  to  seize 
on  single  points ;  and  these  glimmering  points  we 
take  for  suns,  partly  because  they  are  our  seeing  and 
partly  because  the}^  fill  our  vision.  We  are  thus 
occupied,  for  the  most  part,  with  half -seeing.  And 
having  found  some  pole  of  truth  or  of  duty,  we  go  to 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         451 

war  for  that,  as  if  our  lialf  truth  were  entitled  to  fill 
and  occupy  the  universe.  Then  again  our  passions 
carrj  us  away  yet  farther,  like  a  very  great  sail  upon 
some  feathery  skiff  which  the  gusts  drive  hither  and 
thither,  and  force  upon  the  shallows  when  they  will. 
The  pride  which  says,  "  this  is  my  truth,"  or  "  our 
truth,"  opinions  held  more  firmly  by  the  will  because 
they  are  so  dimly  seen  by  the  understanding,  the  lust 
of  power,  the  fanatical  idolatry  of  sect,  all  the  venom- 
ous spirits  that  hover  in  the  steam  of  our  carnal 
hearts,  conspire  to  narrow  even  our  piety  itself.  Evil 
is  a  perpetual  astringent  in  our  souls,  and  we  can  get 
no  breadth,  save  as  we  mortify  and  crucify  ourselves. 
These  are  truths  which  every  Christian  man  must  re- 
gard more  attentively  than  has  yet  been  done  in  any 
former  age.  They  must  enter  into  our  practical  life. 
We  must  habitually  suspect  ourselves  of  limitation. 
We  must  find  the  sect  spirit  in  our  nature  keeping 
close  company  with  our  sins  and  coiling  itself  also,  as 
a  serpent,  around  the  body  of  our  piety.  And  when 
this  latter  grows  exclusive  and  repugnant,  walling 
itself  up  to  heaven  in  its  righteousness,  we  must  have 
it  for  a  maxim  that  we  are  narrowing  ourselves  by  the 
measure  of  our  sins. 

Furthermore,  it  will  be  of  great  use,  if  we  have 
some  philosophic  view  of  life  and  its  appointments, 
that  accords  with  God's  design  therein.  He  has  put 
us  down  in  this  many-sided  world,  where  all  manner 
of  contrary  and  controversial  forces  are  pushing  us 
hither  and  thither,  that  he  may  bring  us  into  all  possi- 


452          CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

ble  views  of  truth  and  duty,  cure  our  half-seeing,  fill 
out  our  otherwise  partial  measure,  and  make  us  as 
nearly  complete  as  it  is  possible  for  us  to  be.  All 
that  we  see,  hear,  experience,  in  this  multifarious 
world  of  struggle  and  debate,  is  undoubtedly  meant  to 
enlarge  the  comprehension  of  our  mind,  principles, 
feelings,  hopes,  charities.  Neitlier  let  any  one  shrink 
from  such  a  thought,  as  if  it  were  akin  to  laxity  or 
licentiousness.  There  is  a  kind  of  liberalism,  as  we 
have  said,  which  is  but  another  name  for  indifference 
to  the  truth.  With  such  a  spirit  the  comprehensive 
soul  has  no  feeling  of  sympathy.  This  is,  in  fact,  the 
type  of  character  most  of  all  devoted  to  truth,  regard- 
ing it  as  the  brightest  beam  of  divinity  that  shines 
into  our  world.  Therefore  it  reverently  seeks  the 
truth  in  all  minds  irradiated  by  its  light,  separates  it 
from  the  errors  with  which  it  is  blended,  sanctifies  it 
as  holy  and  dear  to  God.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we 
speak  of  the  partisan  classes  or  schools,  sometimes 
called  illiberal,  such  as  gather  about  some  pole  of 
doctrine,  stiff  for  their  particular  sect,  impatient  of 
the  least  departure  from  it,  how  manifest  is  it  that 
these  would  rather  die  for  half  the  truth  than  for  the 
whole  !  But  the  comprehensive  spirit  seeks  to  com- 
prehend all  repugnances,  and  lose,  if  possible,  no 
shred  of  truth,  wherever  it  may  be  found.  Actuated 
by  this  lofty  spirit,  in  which  it  resembles  itself  to  God, 
it  listens  to  all  voices,  searches  out  all  forms  of  doc- 
trine, proves  all  things  and  holds  fast  that  which  is 
good.     Let  no  one  fancy  that  he  finds    in  history 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         453 

examples  to  deter  us  from  the  indulgence  of  such  a 
spirit,  as  if  it  were  the  omen  of  a  licentious  age ;  for 
the  history  of  man  has  never  yet  offered  an  example 
of  the  kind.  There  have  been  many  attempts,  in  the 
Christian  world,  to  bring  about  what  is  called,  in  the 
history,  a  comprehension  of  sects  and  parties.  And 
the  best  men  of  the  church  have  been  forward  in  them. 
Baxter,  Howe,  Dr.  Watts,  Bishop  King,  Tillotson, 
Patrick,  and  others  of  the  highest  distinction  in  our 
English  race,  have  conceived  the  idea  of  a  composi- 
tion of  sects,  and  labored  in  their  time  to  bring  it  to 
pass, — labored  of  course  in  vain ;  for  they  conceived 
no  other  method  of  comprehension,  than  one  that  is 
to  be  realized  immediately  by  an  act  of  consent. 
Their  effort  was  to  settle  the  church  by  concession, 
compromise,  and  a-  moderation  of  extremes,  not  to 
prepare  the  souls  of  all  disciples  by  a  gradual  process 
of  enlargement  in  the  truth.  Our  Episcopal  friends, 
too,  sometimes  delight  to  call  their  church,  "  The  Com- 
prehensive Church,"  gravely  showing  how  many  vari- 
eties of  faith  may  be  quietly  harbored,  and  have  been, 
under  its  convenient  ambiguities !  We  propose  a 
method  somewhat  different  from  all  these,  and  one, 
we  think,  which  is  as  much  more  practicable  as  it  is 
less  dangerous  and  farther  removed  from  licentious- 
ness. 

At  the  same  time,  while  we  speak  of  it  as  a  less 
dangerous  method,  we  cannot  deny  that  it  requires  a 
much  higher  courage  and  firmness  of  spirit ;  for  it 
lays  upon  every  man,  as  an  individual,  to  begin  with 


454  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

himself,  and  trust  his  opinions  to  a  law  or  process 
which  is  higher  than  the  law  of  any  sect  or  school. 
And  it  is  scarcely  possible  that  one,  who  is  accustomed 
to  handle  all  the  great  subjects  of  religious  inquiry  in 
this  method,  and  to  work  his  mind  by  the  process  it 
prescribes,  should  not  become  a  generally  suspicious 
character.  But  he  must  content  himself  with  the 
verdict  of  the  future,  not  doubting  that  a  spirit  so  in- 
genuous will  some  time  be  as  much  approved  by  liis 
fellow  Christians,  as  it  certainly  is  by  God  himself. 
Meantime,  while  resting  himself  in  this  manner  on 
the  truth  of  his  own  intentions,  he  will  probably  find 
also  that  he  is  delivered  of  an  affliction  which  is  the 
necessary  torment  of  all  mere  partisans,  dwelling  in 
an  element  of  composure  which  more  than  repays  the 
distrusts  of  his  sect.  The  sectarian  or  partisan  is  the 
man  of  a  part,  one  who  measures  himself  by  the  con- 
tents of  his  sect,  and  not  in  reality  by  the  truth  itself. 
And  as  every  partial  view  must  have  its  antagonist, 
he  is  doomed  to  undergo  a  perpetual  anxiety  for  his 
position.  For,  regarding  it  as  the  very  truth  itself, 
the  complete  truth  of  God,  when  he  sees  it  assaulted 
by  some  adversary,  as  it  certainly  will  be,  he  is  filled 
with  distressful  anxiety  lest  the  very  foundations  of 
the  Gospel  should  finally  give  way  or  be  corrupted. 
But  the  comprehensive  method  assists  one  to  look  on 
the  two  adverse  parties  as  half-seeing  men,  who,  if 
they  see  the  whole  truth  between  them,  have  yet  the 
disadvantage  that  Uiey  see  nothing  as  a  whole.  It  is 
as  if  one  saw  the  centrifugal  and  the  other  the  attrac- 


CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS.         455 

tive  force  of  astronomy.  One  fears  that  the  worlds 
will  fly  asunder  beyond  all  fellowsliip,  the  other  slmd- 
ders  lest  they  rush  into  a  grand  heap  of  ruins  in  the 
center.  But  the  man  who  can  comprehend  both  forces 
in  a  scientific  view,  rests  in  comfort  on  the  balanced 
order  of  the  worlds,  knowing  that  notliing  can  ever 
disturb  the  sweet  influences  of  the  Pleiades,  or  burst 
the  bands  of  Orion.  In  the  same  way  it  will  ever  be 
found  that  the  men  of  a  part  or  a  sect  are  an  uncom- 
fortable and  anxious  race,  living  in  perpetual  panic, 
as  if  Grod's  realm  of  truth  were  just  about  to  dissolve, 
because  their  truth  is  threatened  by  another  which, 
for  some  reason,  will  have  advocates  as  earnest  as 
they.  But  there  is  calmness,  comfort,  courage,  and 
rest  for  any  comprehensive  soul,  knowing  that  if  all 
together  succeed,  they  will  only  suffice  to  fill  out  the 
measures  of  divine  truth. 

We  have  spoken  already  of  language,  as  the  fruit- 
ful source  of  contrary  opinions  and  sects.  If  our 
schools  of  theology  could,  by  three  years  of  exercise, 
get  into  the  minds  of  their  pupils  a  right  understand- 
ing of  this  one  single  matter, — the  relation  of  a 
thought  to  a  word, — they  would  do  more  to  quicken 
their  intelligence  and  prepare  them  to  a  skillful  reso- 
lution of  the  great  questions  pertaining  to  religion, 
than  is  often  done  by  their  whole  course  of  discipline. 
This  of  itself  would  be  the  fruitful  seed  of  a  great 
and  powerful  theology.  This  only  can  open  a  true 
interpretation  of  Scripture,  such  as  will  suffice  for  a 
settlement  of  Christian  doctrine.     The  Scriptures  are 


456  CHRISTIAN    COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

the  truth  of  God  under  the  forms  of  language,  and 
subject  to  its  laws.  No  other  book  contains  a  system 
of  truth  so  complete  and  comprehensive  as  the  Bible, 
and  for  that  tery  reason  it  combines  all  repugnant 
modes  of  statement.  Viewed  in  its  forms  of  lan- 
guage, without  descending  into  its  interior  meaning, 
it  is  the  most  contradictory  of  all  books.  It  is  the 
product  of  all  ages,  and  represents  all  kinds  of  mental 
habit.  It  views  every  subject  of  truth  and  duty  on 
every  side,  and  sets  it  forth  at  every  pole.  It  offers 
thus,  to  a  perverse  or  insufficient  interpretation,  ma- 
terial for  every  sect.  Logically  treated  and  without 
any  power  of  insight  deeper  than  logic,  sects  are  its 
legitimate  products.  We  hear  it  said  on  every  side, 
that  there  are  no  "  isms  "  in  the  Bible.  Rather  should 
we  say,  which  is  the  real  truth,  that  all  manner  of 
"  isms  "  are  in  it,  comprehended  there ;  finite  in  in- 
finite, as  we  ourselves  in  God.  Therefore  only  is  it  a 
complete  and  universal  code  of  truth  worthy  of  its 
author.  When  the  Christian  scholars  are  able  to  dis- 
tinguish between  the  forms  of  truth  and  truth  itself, 
receiving  the  latter  without  being  enslaved  by  the 
laws  of  logic  enveloped  in  the  former,  the  true  catho- 
lic doctrine  will  be  seen  and  the  sects  will  disappear 
and  die.     Sooner  they  cannot. 

It  is  of  the  highest  consequence  also  that  we  should 
understand  the  true  import  of  the  Christian  history, 
and  discover  what  duty  it  has  prepared  for  us.  We 
mourn  over  the  controversies  and  contentions  which 
up  to  this  time  have  rent,  as  we  say,  the  unity  and 


CHRISTIAN     COMPREHENSIVENESS.         457 

peace  of  the  church  of  God.  Many  minds  have  lately 
been  occupied  with  a  peculiar  grief  on  this  account. 
See,  they  say,  into  how  many  sects  and  schools  the 
body  of  our  Lord  is  riven !  And  if  we  look  at  the 
evil  passions  and  bitter  strifes  involved,  it  is  truly  a 
mournful  sight.  But  controversies  must  needs  arise  ; 
in  one  view,  controversies  were  needed,  else  the  mani- 
fold extremes  of  truth  could  never  appear.  It  was 
necessary  for  the  great  champions  to  gird  on  their 
armor  and  take  the  field.  It  was  necessary  to  see 
behind  us  a  long  line  of  militant  ages,  smoking  in  the 
dust  of  controversy  and  causing  the  air  to  ring  with 
the  blows  of  their  valiant  encounter.  So  of  the  sects 
that  have  multiplied  upon  us  in  these  last  ages.  All 
these  are  but  the  preliminary  work  necessary  to  be 
done  in  the  trying  out  of  God's  truth.  In  one  view, 
there  have  never  been  too  many  controversies,  and 
are  not  now  too  many  sects  ;  for  taken  together  they 
are  wanted,  all,  as  a  grand  exhibit  or  practical  dis^ 
play  of  the  manifold  extremes  of  truth.  The  first 
ages  could  not  take  up  the  comprehending  of  oppo^ 
sites  until  the  opposites  were  set  forth  ;  but  they  did 
what  they  could,  they  set  them  forth.  And  now,  in 
these  last  times,  the  result  is  to  appear. 

What  then  is  now  to  be  done  ?  What  does  God 
require  of  us  ?  Controversy  ?  No,  it  is  generally 
agreed  that  we  have  worn  out  controversy.  What 
then  ?  Must  we  learn  to  hold  opinions  more  loosely, 
to  be  patient  with  error,  and  content  ourselves  in  it  ? 
No,  persecution  itself  were  a  dignified  compliment  to 


458  CHRISTIAN     COMPREHENSIVENESS. 

God's  truth  in  comparison  with  any  such  inanity  as 
that.  Do  we  then  want  a  grand,  world-wide  Alliance, 
in  which  all  Christians  will  agree  to  agree,  or  if  they 
cannot  do  that,  to  controvert  harmoniously  ?  So  many 
have  thought,  and  they  appear  to  fancy  that  when  the 
Christian  sects  are  strung  together  thus,  like  bells 
Avithout  a  tongue,  they  will  ring  the  world  a  concert 
by  their  external  impact.  Doubtless  it  is  well,  if  they 
only  meet  to  pray  together  and  blend  their  hearts  in 
communion  before  God.  It  is  in  itself  a  beautifid 
sight,  and  quite  as  beautiful  in  Avhat  it  indicates, — 
the  fact  that  now,  at  last,  a  comprehensive  brother- 
hood in  Christ  has  become  a  want.  That  want  is 
above  all  things  to  be  nourished.  And  being  nour- 
ished, how  shall  it  be  guided  to  the  attainment  of  its 
object  ?  Xot  by  selecting  from  the  contents  of  our 
sects,  and  building  up  a  union  in  diminished  quanti- 
ties of  conviction.  Every  bell  must  have  a  tongue 
and  a  voice  of  its  own.  What  we  need  is  enlarged 
quantities  of  conviction,  fullness  of  truth,  not  a  com- 
pact based  on  half  the  quantity  possessed  by  us  now. 
We  must  take  up  the  conviction  that  we  do  not  all 
together  contain  more  than  the  truth,  and  the  en- 
deavor must  be  to  end  our  strifes  by  such  a  kind  of 
enlargement  as  will  comprehend  all  our  antagonisms, 
and  bring  us  into  the  essential  unity  of  truth  itself. 
We  must  have  it  as  a  settled  conviction,  that  in  almost 
every  form  of  Christian  opinion  earnestly  maintained, 
even  those  which  are  often  regarded  as  pure  error, 
there  is  yet  some  element  of  truth,  something  whicli 


CHRISTIAN     COMPllEHENSIVENESS.         459 

makes  it  true  to  its  disciples.  Then  laying  aside  all 
malice,  our  schools  must  go  into  the  language,  one  of 
another,  asking  what  makes  it  true  to  tlie  school 
maintaining  it,  and  thus  we  must  proceed  till  all  our 
antagonisms  are  sifted  and  every  school  has  gotten  to 
itself  the  riches  of  all.  Or  better  still,  admitting  each 
that  our  wisdom  is  not  perfect,  that  the  trutli  we 
hold  is  only  partial  truth,  we  are  to  cherisli  the 
want  of  something  more  perfect.  And  then,  ceasing 
to  insist  that  others  shall  receive  and  justify  us, 
we  are  to  ask.  What  have  they  which  is  a  want  in 
us  ?  What  views  of  theirs,  qualifying  ours,  would 
render  them  more  valuable  to  us  ?  What  contri- 
bution, accepted  of  them,  would  make  us  more  com- 
plete in  the  riches  of  the  Gospel  ?  Tims  let  Calvinism 
take  in  Arminianism,  Arminianism  Calvinism ;  let 
decrees  take^  in  contingency,  contingency  decrees ; 
faith  take  in  works,  and  works  faith  ;  the  old  take  in 
the  ncv>',  the  new  the  old ;  not  doubting  that  we  shall 
be  as  much  wiser  as  we  are  more  comprehensive,  as 
much  closer  to  unity  as  we  have  more  of  the  truth. 
For  then,  as  all  are  seen  embracing  and  comprehending 
all,  we  shall  find  that  we  are  one,  not  by  virtue  of  any 
concert  or  agreement,  but  as  the  necessary  consequence 
of  our  completeness  in  the  truth.  To  be  strung  to- 
gether in  outward  alliances  will  now  be  a  vain  thing ; 
for  all  Christian  souls  will  ring  in  peals  of  harmony, 
as  a  chime  that  is  voiced  by  the  truth. 


b 


Q'- 


Date  Due 


